


hiding both face and mind

by veterization



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, M/M, Minor Kitagawa Yusuke/Takamaki Ann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:54:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: Goro's new apartment would be just fine if not for his extremely annoying upstairs neighbors. Perhaps a bit of note passing will help the situation.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 63
Kudos: 413





	hiding both face and mind

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to the incomparable [androgenius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius) for her continuous support and encouragement during the laborious writing process of this story, which I originally intended (ha) to have finished before P5R came out. The sprinkles of Yusuke/Ann in this story are for her!
> 
> Inspired by the exquisite 1959 movie Pillow Talk. Title from the lyrics of Beneath the Mask.

“I thiiiink that’s the last of it,” Ann says as she sets down a box labeled _decorative pillows_.

She does a nearly convincing show of appearing winded, arching her back, leaning side to side. After carrying the majority of the truck’s contents himself, Goro’s back is plotting his murder, so he doesn’t care much for her exaggerated drama. Goro puts _books — nonfiction a-f_ down on the floor, letting it drop with a pointedly loud thud.

Still, he’s polite enough to show gratitude. “Thank you,” he says, surveying the horde of boxes in the apartment. “But, in many ways, the real work of unpacking starts now.”

“You want help?”

Goro can imagine the merciless teasing that would arise if Ann starts rummaging through some of Goro’s boxes—his large collection of Nancy Drew mysteries comes to mind—so that’ll be a firm no. “I think I’ll be able to manage.”

Moving’s always been a nuisance. It was bad enough as a child, being shipped from foster home to foster home, but it’s almost gotten worse since Goro’s grown up. The convenience of having things arranged on his behalf is gone nowadays, leaving all the work to fall on Goro’s shoulders. Combined with his university studies and his police work, that leaves all too little time to dedicate to shuffling all his things in and out of boxes.

Not that he owns all that many things in the first place. It’s still a laborious task, though, especially when he gets to thinking about how unnecessary it was this time.

Ann starts opening up boxes anyway. “I still can’t believe all those girls found out your address,” she says as she starts pulling plates free from bubble wrap. “What is this anyway? The third time your stalkers found your place?”

“Fans,” Goro corrects mildly.

“Fine, fans. Fans who stalk you. I’m starting to get worried about you, Goro.”

Goro shakes his head. “Don’t be,” he says. “I highly doubt any of them are legitimately dangerous. And besides, I can protect myself.”

Not that he expects anything as drastic as a break-in. The worst he’s ever gotten were some concerningly insistent letters featuring tales of his future marriage with a complete stranger. Or perhaps that used bra he got in the mail that one time.

Still. This is a new place, a fresh start. And it’s tucked away enough that he might not be tracked down this time, especially since the apartment is cheaper than Shido’s usual. Moving him all around the country has proven to be too much of a hassle to spend top dollar on, he had said. Goro tries his best not to feel like last month’s failed product, now sitting in the sale bin.

“Do you want me to stay over tonight?” Ann asks, leaning her elbow on a tower of boxes. Her doing so reminds Goro of just how much work he has to tackle here before this place will feel even remotely like home.

The moment it does, he’s sure he’ll have to move out again, for some reason or another.

He sighs. “No, it’s all right. I have an early class tomorrow, so I should probably get to bed soon.”

He doesn’t think he could’ve picked a worse time to up and move. Life has been so stressful for Goro lately, between late hours at the police station and squeezing in TV interviews and dealing with Shido, to say nothing of the logistical nightmare of finding the time to pick up all his belongings and move across the city.

“This is gonna be a great place for you, Goro,” Ann says, looking around. “I can totally feel it.”

Later, after Ann’s left and Goro’s finished a generous share of unpacking for and can start to see the place come together, Goro has to admit that it’s not a bad apartment. The layout is open and friendly. The flooring and wall colors are simple enough to not be distracting. Even all his things seem to fit here well, not too crowded, not too lonesome.

Still, he tries not to think longingly back to his last apartment. The sleek floors, the modern style. The deep bathtub and the wide balcony.

He settles in for dinner after he’s cleaned up the majority of the boxes. Ann brought groceries—although most of them were, admittedly, sweets—but Goro can’t bother with cooking after all the manual labor, so he calls in delivery food.

He’s just gotten himself utensils and sat down to start eating when it happens: through the ceiling, pulsing downward like an earthquake, comes loud, demanding dance music.

It startles Goro into dropping his fork. It falls on the table with a clatter, a clatter that goes unheard over the din of the techno beats. Goro waits, affronted, for the volume to go down, for basic manners to kick into the brain of whomever is operating that stereo from hell, but the music remains unchanged, throbbing through the walls like a giant’s heartbeat.

After two minutes, Goro feels too annoyed to eat. After five minutes, the noise has taken up too much space in his brain for him to _think_. Are his upstairs neighbors deaf? Are they unthinkingly rude? Or has the entire building been taken hostage by punks and ruffians with boom boxes?

Only one way to find out. Goro gets to his feet, determined to find the source of all this turbulence. He heads out to the hall, following the music upwards.

The culprit becomes more and more obvious the further Goro goes up the stairs. The music is all but thumping off the ceilings, vibrating through the floors with each bass drop. By the time he reaches the landing, he realizes that the wild partiers are directly above him.

Hooligans, Goro thinks. He lives with hooligans. People who, thanks to the joys of apartment living, he has to put his trust into not to burn down the entire building.

He knocks on the offender’s door, but it takes a few tries for it to be heard through the din of the music. Finally, the door yanks open.

The contrite apology that Goro’s expecting doesn’t come. Instead, a belligerent bottle blond with a rude word on his t-shirt is standing at the door, hands across his chest. He doesn’t look too impressed by Goro’s interruption.

“Yeah?” he says.

Goro’s so taken aback by the lack of manners that he momentarily doesn’t know what to say. When that passes, what’s left is simmering anger at the kind of people he has to share a world with.

“Excuse me,” Goro says. If his neighbor’s not going to show any manners, Goro will lead by example. “My name is Goro Akechi. I live directly below you, and I couldn’t help but notice that your music is quite loud.”

The guy laughs. The opening Goro left for an apology is promptly leapt over. “Oh, yeah. We’re having a party tonight.”

“A party.”

“Yeah. And we’re gonna invite a bunch of people, so it's probably gonna get louder.”

Goro blinks. “I see.” He lets his tone get a little frosty, but just the edges of his words. “I suppose you have the luxury of sleeping in.”

The guy shrugs, uncaring. It’s possible he was raised by wild dogs, although that might be a bit harsh on the wild dog community. Goro just keeps waiting for the laughter; surely this is all a joke.

“Sooo,” the guy says, shifting his feet. “Y’need something else?”

“No,” Goro says, clipped. “Thanks, anyway.”

He forces out a tight smile—image, Shido is always reminding him, _watch your image_ —and wheels around to stomp back down the stairs. He hasn’t even made it to the first step when he hears the music start back up again.

_So_ rude. Beyond rude. Inconsiderate and downright inhumane.

His food’s cold by the time he returns. Goro picks at it, still caught in a whirl of both disbelief and unbridled rage, and tries to tune out the sounds of remixed pop music and lively chatter drifting down from the ceiling. Goro stomps around harder than necessary as he cleans his plate up but it seems that the noise only gets swallowed up by the ruckus upstairs.

The party goes well after midnight, long after Goro’s gone to bed. At a certain point, it feels like he’s being mocked. Possibly by his neighbors, but most definitely by the universe. _Hey, look at all the fun you could be having tonight if you were a normal guy with a normal life_ , the universe points out.

That blond idiot from upstairs probably judged Goro for not being laid-back enough to understand that parties are going to be seethingly loud. Or maybe he judged him for not asking to come, or for not throwing his own party, or for wearing a fucking argyle sweater vest.

Goro rubs the the spot of tension between his eyebrows. It sounds like the room directly above his bedroom has devolved into a game of beer pong. Every few seconds, Goro can hear cheers and jeers through the pounding music.

He considers calling the police, but also acknowledges that that might make for some awkward encounters in the hall with his neighbors in the future. To think that he’s actually missing the crazed fans staking out his home all hours of the day.

Welcome home, Goro thinks.

\--

“Woah, Akechi-kun. You look tired,” Sae says by the coffeemaker the next morning.

Goro doesn’t want to talk about it. It was his alarm that had to wake him this morning, and none too pleasantly. That party upstairs had gone on much too long to be normal. What could possibly be celebrated for so many hours? And so _loudly_ at that?

He buries himself in his coffee cup. The coffee here is never particularly good, nearly over-roasted, but it’s decent enough for what Goro needs it for today: caffeine.

“Thanks,” he says, possibly too bitterly than he should. “My new neighbors were, ah. Rather rambunctious last night.”

“Is that so?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t get much sleep,” Goro says. It felt like the floor was made of papermache last night, every single sound or laugh or bass drop seeping through the ceiling. “I must admit that my mental capacities are suffering today as a result.”

“We all have our days,” Sae says, probably meaning to be sympathetic but coming off a little pedantic, like Goro’s neighbors having no sense of circadian rhythms is somehow his fault. “I have a cafe recommendation if you’d like something a bit stronger during lunch.”

Goro waves her off. “I’m afraid I won’t have time to take a lunch break. I have plenty of work to keep me busy today.” And class in the afternoon. And an essay to work on. And boxes still waiting to be unpacked at home. His head swims with exhaustion he knows is waiting for him. “Thank you for the concern, though.”

He tops off his coffee. The stress of moving is getting to him, and everything else that’s going wrong today—including this weak coffee—is only exacerbating the frustration. He just needs to make it through today and then tonight, he can kick back with a good documentary and some takeout and relax.

\--

Except that right around seven p.m., his neighbors have other plans for him.

It starts out as some odd thumping, like someone’s moving furniture, but it keeps going. And going. Until Goro realizes it’s actually someone jumping around, and with enough rhythm that this might just be exercising. Maybe jumping jacks? Or jump-roping? Or the sport of driving Goro up a wall?

When the thuds stop, the marathon running comes next. Back and forth. Through the room. Over and over. It’s like there’s a stampede of wild horses above him.

Goro can’t relax like this. He can’t do much of anything in this noise, not when it’s starting to morph into a headache.

Would that blond punk upstairs even be open to listening to Goro’s complaints? Or better yet, would Goro even be able to complain to him without threats winging their poisonous little way out of his mouth?

No, he’ll go about this differently. He’ll let those idiots upstairs think about what it is they’re doing to society as a whole, and he’s going to accomplish that with a passive-aggressive note. He shoots to his feet and goes on a hunt for pen and paper.

_Dear neighbor above me,_

_Perhaps you are unaware, but your evenings as of late have been very loud for your neighbors. This is the second night that I’ve been unable to go about my business because of the noise, and would appreciate some consideration for the people in the building who have work and other important obligations early in the morning. If you have either of the above, you’ll understand where I’m coming from._

_Thank you in advance,_

_Neighbor below you_

The _thanks in advance_ might be a little presumptuous, but Goro knows that praise disguised as gratitude is a powerful drug. He folds his note in half, pleased, and heads upstairs to drop it off.

Upstairs, it’s clear that Goro’s guess about the noise was right; he can hear motivational yelling and repetitive jumping. Isn’t this what gyms are for? Surely a sixty-something square meter apartment isn’t the ideal space to work out.

Then again, it’s already been made clear that these people are seriously lacking in the intellect department. Goro takes a moment to listen to their neanderthal shouting through the door, and then slips the note under the gap and goes back downstairs.

\--

By the afternoon the following day, Goro feels like he’s in danger of nodding off at his desk. His second night had not been a good one, even if the workout from upstairs ended much sooner than the raging party from the night before.

He complains about as much to Ann through text messages, who promptly offers up a sleepover at her place as a solution.

_I have too much work to do_ , he texts her as a quick dismissal, one she isn’t interested in hearing.

_You do not!_ she texts back.

_???_ he sends, and when that doesn’t feel quite adequate enough, he adds, _Yes I do_

_come on it’s just one night! and to help you sleep!_

Goro considers her argument. Ann is a bit of a chatterbox, so it’s questionable just how much sleep he’d actually get at her place, and at best, this is a temporary bandaid on an injury that can only be fixed by ripping the damn splinters out. The splinters, in this case, are his inhumane neighbors. He can’t very well sleep on Ann’s couch on a permanent basis.

Still, this would be one night of peace. Goro stifles a yawn as he scrolls through emails that are starting to blur together.

_Fine_ , he texts Ann. _But I’ll have to go home first and grab some overnight things._

He resolves to reply to the urgent emails and then call it a day. He’s even looking forward to a night at Ann’s place by the time he leaves work and gets on the train; they can make dinner together and Ann can entertain him with stories of the latest inter-model rivalry.

His temporary relief at securing a good night’s sleep goes out the window when Goro approaches his apartment and sees that someone’s taped a note onto his door.

_A rebuttal._

Goro rips it off the door, furious before he’s even read the thing. The sheer fact that it came without an apology fruit basket is already infuriating.

_To the neighbor below,_

_Hey, sorry about the noise recently. We’re usually a pretty quiet bunch, but the party the other night was a special occasion._

_Would it soothe you if you got an open invitation to the next party?_

_Neighbor above you_

Goro reads the note a few times over, and then once more for good measure, before curling it into his fist.

An open invitation to the next party. At best, it’s a pity invite, and at worst, it’s a bribe. A horrible one at that. As if Goro has nothing better to do than go to a rowdy party after an exhausting day at work. He closes his fingers around the note, deeply displeased.

“It’s just absurd, isn’t it,” Goro rants to Ann later over ramen. “Who would—who would feel so entitled as to do this?”

“Well, they did apologize.”

He scoffs. “Please. I know an earnest apology when I see one.”

“Oh, c’mon, Goro. Is it really that bad?”

Goro doesn’t want to have to prove himself. He doesn’t even really want to talk about this, not when he’s supposed to be enjoying his night away from all that ruckus. “See for yourself,” he grumbles. “Stop by and just _listen_.”

“Okay,” Ann says, shrugging. She can afford to shrug; her apartment is surrounded by a deaf elderly woman and a security guard who works nights.

Goro grabs their empty bowls, getting to his feet. “Let’s talk about something else.”

Ann jumps on the opportunity. “Okay!” she says again, suddenly animated. “How’s your dating life going?”

Goro freezes. “Anything but that.”

“Awww, no fair! I tell you everything going on with my love life.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” he insists.

“What about that IT guy that you work with sometime? I swear he’s into you.”

Goro turns away to hide any pink that’s taking over his ears. “Be that as it may, I’m not into him.”

“Why not? He’s pretty cute.”

“He brown-noses Shido every chance he has,” Goro says with flat distaste. “He’s not exactly what I’m looking for in a partner.”

At the very least, it’s a reason that persuades Ann. She sighs, leaning against the countertop while Goro starts cleaning the ramen bowls.

“Shame,” she says on a sad little exhale. She nudges him in the hip. “You’d make a good boyfriend.”

_I’d make a terrible boyfriend_ , Goro thinks. Long hours working and stress from studying and very little tolerance for anyone’s bullshit make that clear. Also, there’s the fact that most of the time, he feels like a kettle that looks innocent enough but is secretly ready to boil over into a high-pitched, bubbling whistle any moment.

“I’m not looking to date now anyway,” Goro says, focusing on the plates. “I’m too busy.”

“Yeah, but when are you ever not gonna be?” Ann presses. “And look, you made time for me! You could make time for a few dates here and there.”

“Maybe,” Goro says, more to get her off his case than anything else. It might be easier that way, instead of admitting that he has absolutely zero interest in doing what he knows will be a waste of time anyway. 

The idea of a relationship is nice enough—the intimacy, the familiarity, the simple pleasure of having someone to share his life and his interests and his detective shows with—but Goro knows there’s more to one than that. There’s getting to know people and people getting to know _him_ , and frankly, Goro can’t even tell which one is worse. All he knows is that he spends so much time being _on_ , on for work, on for TV, on for Shido, and he doesn’t want to carry that over to a relationship but also doesn’t know how to not. All in all, it reeks of someone who doesn’t even have the mental capacity to be in a relationship in the first place.

That’s fine. Goro’s resigned himself to a life without romance for at least a while. Who does Ann imagine would be available to him, anyway? His relative fame has whittled down his dating pool to people who don’t know who he is, as those who do either prop him up on disturbing pedestals or immediately dislike him for his connections, knowledge, acclaim, or all of the above.

And he refuses to try—

“You could always try online dating,” Ann suggests.

“ _No_ ,” Goro grumbles. He hands her a bowl to dry with a bit more force than necessary. “I can only imagine if that leaked. And it would.” Shido’s resulting outburst would be amusing, admittedly, for approximately one minute. “I’m not that desperate.”

He has plenty of things to fulfill him. People keep asking him how he has the time to do all the things he does, but in the same breath, pester him on why he’s not in a relationship. Everybody knows: career or romance, both just aren’t possible. And Goro’s chosen career. What’s so terrible about that? He’s driven. He’s ambitious. He’s concentrated.

He’s not lonely.

The note from his neighbor sits in his pocket as if burning a hole through it. They probably assume he’s lonely. They probably assume he spends his nights yearningly staring at the ceiling, longing to join their rebelliously loud parties.

“I don’t need a boyfriend,” Goro says, stubborn. “What I _need_ is a new apartment.” He stares moodily at the water streaming from the faucet as he rinses Ann’s bowl. “I need to call Shido.”

“Ugh. You sure that’s a good idea?”

“What choice do I have?” Goro grumbles. “Those—” neanderthals “— _people_ from upstairs are impossible.”

He thinks about that insufferable note, and that blond goon from upstairs, and all that _noise_ Goro’s been having to live through. Shido’s the one who got him the apartment, though, and Shido’s the one who arranged the entire lease. Even Goro’s home is just another leash for Shido to keep him on.

“Come on,” Ann says, brightening. “Let’s not talk about that loser. Do you want to make cupcakes?”

Goro is perfectly aware that cupcakes are just an excuse for Ann to eat buttercream frosting by the spoonful, but he’s in a bit of a funk, so he’ll admit that a bit of sugar intake might do him well. It might even cheer him up.

“All right,” he says. “But I choose the flavor.”

\--

He doesn’t sleep much better at Ann’s than he does at home. The sheets here just aren’t right, and the fridge has a strange hum, and Ann mumbles too much in her sleep. By morning, he’s still a little bleary-eyed and ready to get home to at least take advantage of it being Sunday.

Sunday. That might be a double-edged sword. Sunday is a day of rest, no work or school to attend, but Sunday is also when people stay up late and throw parties.

Goro can’t believe he’s afraid of living in his own apartment. No— _afraid_ isn’t quite right. But he’s certainly dreading the ride home on the train, the route still unfamiliar. How on earth is he going to get accustomed to his new home when his new home is teeming with raucous delinquents? He nearly misses the stalkers.

He looks over the note left on his door during the ride, drafting a reply in his head. By the time he gets home, he’s itching to put pen to paper.

_Neighbor above me,_

_I’m afraid it wasn’t just the party. The following night, I overheard what seemed to be an extremely lengthy workout session. It’s great to keep such healthy habits, but even greater to keep them at a more reasonable time of day._

_Thanks for the party invite, but I’ll have to pass. Please just keep the volume at a minimum._

_Neighbor below you_

\--

_Hey downstairs neighbor,_

_It feels like I’m always apologizing to you, doesn’t it? Just to keep up the tradition, sorry about the noise while we were working out. My roommate trains pretty frequently, but we’ve never had a complaint about it before._

_Out of curiosity, I’ve never heard anything through the ceiling from my upstairs neighbor… you must have the thinnest walls of everyone in the building. Crazy._

_We’ll try to keep it down._

_Neighbor above you_

_PS: You’re still welcome to that party._

\--

Goro blinks down at the note in his hand. He blinks again, waiting to see if it’ll evaporate, or he’ll wake up, or the words will change shape.

He’s suspended somewhere between complete disbelief and a white-hot rage. It isn’t until he tries to find the origin of that rage that he realizes there’s something decidedly different about this note compared to the last. This one isn’t just refusing to be contrite; this one is… smug. Disgustingly so.

Is that blond ruffian Goro met the author of these notes? Something about the guy’s demeanor leads Goro to thinking that he isn’t capable of reading, let alone writing.

That note makes Goro feel like it’s time to send in the cavalry. He’s been nice enough, but he doesn’t have time for a pen pal, nor does he have any interest in battling his uncooperative neighbors for a good night’s rest. He grabs his phone, determined.

“What is it, Akechi?” Shido snaps once he picks up the call.

“I’m glad I caught you,” Goro says. “Shido-san, I’m afraid the apartment isn’t going to work out.”

There’s a short, albeit lengthy in spirit, pause. When Shido does speak, it’s in a bark. “What?”

“The complex itself is perfectly lovely. It’s rather the neighbors that are the problem.”

Shido mutters something under his breath that Goro doesn’t catch. “What’s the matter here, Akechi? Never learned to play well with others?”

Goro bristles. He lets himself dream, just for a moment, about reaching physically through his phone and coming out the other side from Shido’s and strangling him until he chokes out all the begging Goro deserves to hear from him. He forces that fantasy back down for the time being.

“I’ve tried speaking to them,” Goro explains, voice distinctly level. “They were extremely dismissive.” The silence on the other end of the phone is deafening, so Goro switches tactics. Shido might not care about Goro’s well-being, but he certainly cares about work. Specifically the quality of said work. “Frankly, the lack of sleep is affecting my work.”

“So you want me to move you all around the city so you can get your beauty sleep?” Shido asks. He huffs. “Akechi. This is the third time you’ve moved this year.”

Goro shifts. He’s feeling his opportunity slip away from him like a wispy phantom. “Yes, but those were all different circumstances—”

“It’s always something, isn’t it?” Shido continues, steamrolling on. “You need more natural light. You’ve attracted too many stalkers. Your train ride into the city takes too long.”

Goro opens his mouth to retort—never once has he complained about _natural light_ , he’ll swear to that—but Shido gets there faster.

“Akechi, you’ve been there barely a week. Work it out. Give it some time before you already pack your bags again.”

He sounds immovable on the subject, voice hard. Goro really should’ve expected that his concerns would’ve been swept under the rug, but he’s still annoyed that his complaints fell on completely deaf ears.

Fine. He’ll just do the legwork himself. Surely there’s another apartment available somewhere in the same complex. Surely Shido wouldn’t gripe too much if Goro just switched floors.

He makes some phone calls, and after being rerouted along a few times, he reaches the building manager.

“Are there any apartments available in the building?” Goro asks after he’s explained his predicament.

“Wellll…” Goro can hear the clicking of a mouse, then the shuffling of some papers. “The Tanakas are moving out of 8C…”

8C. Sounds like home. “Perfect,” Goro says.

“...four months from now.”

“...pardon?”

The building manager smacks his tongue. “The Yamashirus are leaving in six months, if that fits your timeframe better.”

“What? No—no, I was looking more for something available immediately. Or at the very least, as soon as possible.”

This time the guy sucks air in through his teeth. Goro doesn’t appreciate all these mouth acoustics. “Sorry. It’s a busy neighborhood. Most people are on a waitlist around here. Hold on.” The typing of a keyboard. “There are a few open apartments, but they’re set to be moved into within the next few weeks. One of ‘em’s right above you.”

A flicker of hope touches Goro. “Right above me?”

“Well, two floors right above. But you’d only have maybe two weeks there before you’d have to leave again.”

Two floors right above? The note on Goro’s door comes back to him, specifically the bit about his neighbors never griping about the people above them. So much for them trying to shame him into thinking he’s a fussy, whining curmudgeon when everyone else is so tolerant and forgiving.

Goro breathes carefully in through his nose. “I’ll just stay where I am,” he grumbles, even if what he’d like to say is _thanks for nothing_. “Can I at least report a complaint against the noise?”

“Sure,” says the manager. He already sounds distracted. Goro can hear the sounds of typing picking up again, and he somehow doubts it’s his complaint being formally put into motion.

He ends the call somehow more frustrated than he did after the call with Shido. The lack of sleep is getting to him, as is humanity as a whole.

What he needs is to get out of here. And also a good cup—or pot—of coffee. Didn’t Sae mention a cafe just recently?

\--

It’s a bit of a way out to the coffeeshop, but Goro welcomes the train ride. Lately he’s been on a razor’s edge of his own nerves, and he can’t even blame his bad mood entirely on his uncooperative neighbors. The back-and-forth rocking of the train is lulling, calming him.

Ann would once again say he needs a boyfriend. Someone to help take the edge off, make his world a little less grim. Gloomily, Goro can admit how she might have at least half of a point, but he’s still pointing a finger at Shido when it comes to who’s the biggest stressor in his life.

He lets himself daydream during the ride what a future without Shido could look like. Peaceful, relieving. Less fraught with constant rage and tension. Goro sighs; that’s still a long ways away.

He finds the cafe easily enough once he gets off the train and leaves the station. The town is quiet, a little rundown around the edges, but Goro knows that that’s sometimes where the best hidden gems lay.

Leblanc, Sae had said. Really good house blend, she had promised.

The door jingles as Goro lets himself in. The place is small, with outdated lamps and old wood, but the ambience is warm and it smells promising, of fresh beans and… is that curry?

Someone’s washing the dishes, the sound mingling with the soft noise of the television, but he looks away from the sink and over his shoulder when Goro takes a step inside. He looks to be about Goro’s age, with a dark mop of hair and green apron tied around his waist.

“Hello,” Goro says as the door shuts behind him. “Could I get a coffee, please?”

“Sure,” says the dishwasher, who pulls off his gloves and becomes the barista. Jack of all trades, Goro supposes. “Any preferences?”

“House blend will do just fine,” Goro says, then pauses. “Or anything you recommend.”

The barista smiles. The sight of it makes Goro realize that he’s actually quite handsome. “Got it,” he says, and turns to the shelf of beans.

Goro’s grip goes tight on his briefcase as he takes a seat at the counter and pointedly doesn’t look at the smooth line of the guy’s back as he arches upward to grab a jar from a high shelf. Stop it, he thinks. He’s here to unwind, not get himself all worked up. 

The barista nabs the jar, then looks curiously over his shoulder. “You okay with it being a surprise?”

Goro shrugs. “By all means.”

He watches as his coffee is prepared, how the siphon machine is utilized. The final product is put in front of him in a clean porcelain mug alongside a satisfied smile.

“There you go,” the man says. He watches, expectant, as Goro draws the cup to his lips.

The first sip is too hot, but the second is clearer, bolder. It’s a good cup of coffee, with complex undertones that Goro can’t pinpoint, speaking for the mastery that went into making it. Goro drinks half of it before he puts it down and shares his opinion.

“It’s very good,” he says, and there comes that lethal smile again. “A different taste. It’s not like anything I’ve ever had before.”

“Mocha Matari.”

“Hm?”

“The type of bean,” the guy explains. “The flavor profile is a bit… _spicier_ than most coffees, if that makes sense. Do you get hints of chocolate?”

Now that he mentions it, Goro does. He takes another sip, letting the underlying flavors tickle his tongue. “I do,” he says. “It’s a very unique taste. I’m certainly glad I came here.” At the barista’s interested glance, he adds, “My coworker recommended this place to me. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, you see, and needed a pick-me-up.”

“In that case,” he says, “have another one.”

Goro doesn’t refuse. He’s not a glutton for caffeine, but the extra buzz feels energizing, boosting the bits of him that have been lagging. He lets the barista prepare him a new cup—a different roast this time—once he’s finished with his first.

The door jangles open again just as Goro’s second cup is being poured. A man in an apron of his own comes inside, heading behind the counter, at which point his gaze flickers over to Goro while he pulls cigarette packs out of his pocket and stuffs them under the register.

“You’re a new face,” he observes, sounding neither pleased nor annoyed by this new addition to his clientele. Just intrigued. He nods toward Goro’s cup. “How do you like the coffee?”

“Oh, it’s divine,” Goro says. “Are you the owner?”

“That’s me. I’m Sojiro Sakura.” He points his thumb at his employee. “And this here’s my apprentice.”

“Ah, excuse my manners,” Goro says. “My name is Goro Akechi.”

If he’s expecting a flicker of recognition at the name, it doesn’t come. All the better. A little bit of anonymity is welcome sometimes, especially when Goro just wants to enjoy a cup of coffee in a quiet cafe.

“Akira Kurusu,” the barista says. He slides Goro’s finished coffee over to him. “Can I get you anything else?”

Goro looks down at the steaming cup in front of him. “Oh, no, thank you,” Goro says, wrapping his hands around the porcelain warmth. “A cup of good coffee is just what I need while I get some work done.”

Kurusu’s eyebrows arch. “What kind of work?”

“Oh, a bit of everything. Law school work, and work from the station. When I’m not busy with class, I help out at the police station as a detective.”

“Hey, this guy’s in university too,” Sakura says, clapping Kurusu on the shoulder. He lets out a badly contained puff of laughter. “Not that it’s law school, by any means.”

“Is that so? What are you studying?”

“Psychology.”

“Ah. A fascinating subject,” Goro says. “What made you pick it up?”

Kurusu shrugs. “People tell me I’m easy to talk to. Good at helping them with their problems.”

“That’s a good skill to have,” Goro comments. “It can’t always be learned. Most often you have to be lucky enough to be born with it.”

“And you?”

“Hm?”

Kurusu cocks an eyebrow. It’s immediately lost in his chaotic hair. “Were you born with a… sleuthing instinct?”

The smile that Goro feels grow is almost alarming in how genuine it feels. A little laugh even follows. “Perhaps some of it is instinctual, but I definitely learned a lot along the way,” he says. “I’m sure I could teach you a few things about the process.”

Kurusu nods. “I’d like that,” he says. “What can I offer in return?”

Goro looks down at the cup in front of him and stops to take a sip. Its bold flavor is completely opposite of the bitter dregs served at the police station. “You can always teach me the art of coffee,” he says, then spares a glance at Sakura. “Assuming they aren’t trade secrets, of course.”

“Only some of it is confidential,” Kurusu says.

A dish rag hits him in the chest a second later, courtesy of Sakura, who gestures at the unfinished dishes in the sink. “Finish up over there,” he orders Kurusu.”You can get back to fl—” He stops to cough. “Uh, chatting with the customers later.”

He starts unwrapping cigarettes while Kurusu goes back to the sink, but not before gracing Goro with one last of those fatal grins, leaving Goro to his coffee.

It’s all very relaxing. The atmosphere is pleasant, and every now and then when Goro’s cup runs low, Kurusu appears, holding a pot in offering, and Goro nods, quietly accepting the refill. Even the low murmuring of the TV doesn’t disturb him, and Goro gets a good amount of work done on his criminology essay before he considers sitting back and reading until an even better idea strikes him.

He decides to work on his reply to his infernal neighbor. After that last message, he’s shirking courtesy and heading straight for scathing disdain.

He starts with a few drafts, trying to figure out what the right level of belittlement is called for. The coffee is energizing him, boosting his creativity.

_Dear neighbor above me,_

_You must be quite the joker, telling me that you don’t overhear your own upstairs neighbor, when I know perfectly well that you don’t have one. Perhaps if you did, you’d have more sympathy for my situation._

_Once again, I’ll pass on the party, but would appreciate a warning before you throw the next one. If necessary, we could work out a schedule for when your noise making would be the least bothersome._

_Neighbor below you_

“What’re you working on?” asks Kurusu, who’s stopped by Goro’s chair.

Goro reflexively covers the note with his hand. “Ah—just… correspondence,” Goro says with a benign smile.

“Work stuff?”

“Not quite. This is more of a… personal matter.”

Kurusu nods. He wipes up some of the stray granules of sugar on the edge of the counter. “You want some curry?” he offers. “You must be getting hungry. It’s around dinnertime.”

“Oh.” Goro pushes his sleeve out of the way to check his watch, although on closer inspection, the darkness descending outside should've been a clue. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to stay so late.”

He starts packing up his briefcase. He has a meeting with Shido’s IT guy in nearly an hour, and the trains to Shibuya won’t be forgiving at this time of day.

“Maybe next time, then,” Kurusu suggests.

“I’m sorry?”

“The curry,” he explains. “Next time you’ll try some, yeah?”

“Oh. Of course.” Goro feels himself coloring and quickly stuffs more papers into his briefcase. “I appreciate the invite. I’d be very happy to come back.”

He looks up again, only to be treated to the sight of Kurusu smiling at him, hopeful. His hair is falling in frizzier locks than it did before; maybe the steam from the curry pot is to blame. Goro feels something stir in his stomach, suddenly remembering Ann’s well-meaning words about dating.

“Well,” he says, getting to his feet. He slides some money on the counter. “Thank you for the coffee.”

He hurries out of the cafe, heart racing. Too much caffeine, Goro tells himself.

\--

He ends up being right about the trains. He barely makes it to his meeting in time, and only at the price of being crammed into a rush-hour train. The elbows in his back feel like permanent imprints by the time Goro finishes his commute.

The meeting itself isn’t much better. Now that she’s pointed it out, Goro is fairly certain that Ann was right about Shido’s tech guy being interested in him. He keeps flashing Goro coy smiles and touching his forearm and finding ways to slip into conversation how many boats he has, and does Goro like boats?

Dodging his advances feels like enough exercise to last a whole week, and by the time Goro heads back home late that night, any joy from his afternoon at Leblanc has been chipped away.

He notices just as he reaches for his keys that there’s a note taped onto his door. He reaches for it, bracing himself for his own anger.

_No complaints last night?_

It’s not signed as usual, but Goro recognizes the handwriting regardless. He snatches his note, already prepared at the coffeeshop, out of his briefcase, and scribbles in an addendum.

_I was out last night, but I’m sure I missed a great ruckus. Am I right?_

He goes upstairs to slip it under the door before he settles in for the night.

It’s quieter than usual that evening. Goro sits on the sofa in near-silence, almost lost in the loneliness of it. He wanted this, to have a home he could concentrate in without disturbances, but right now, something about the empty apartment swallowed by its own quiet feels forlorn. The last of the boxes Goro hasn’t had time to unpack yet stand in the corner, a reminder of how foreign this place still is to him.

The noisy gathering Goro was expecting from upstairs doesn’t happen either. He can still hear sounds, but nothing blaringly loud. Goro can make out muffled laughter, and not much else. Somehow, the laughter is worse than a raging party would have been. It takes Goro’s solitude and twists it around over and over like a dishrag being squeezed of wash water.

What are they all laughing about up there? What are they all talking about? How many of them even are there? Goro’s never had a roommate, unless he counts his various foster families. Even so, there was never anyone his age he could talk to, play around with, get to know. Why do those horrible people from upstairs get to have that and Goro doesn’t?

He goes to bed early that night, and buries his ear into the pillow.

\--

Ann comes over the next day after Goro’s done at the TV station. She’s standing by the building’s entrance with a cactus leaning against her hip when Goro approaches.

“Hey!” She thrusts the cactus out toward him.

Goro doesn’t take it. He doesn’t trust anything actively trying to injure him without even trying. “What is it?”

“A housewarming gift, dummy! Cactuses are good luck.”

“I’m fairly certain it’s _cacti_.”

She makes a noise, dismissive, and shoves the pot into Goro’s hands before he can graciously decline this gift. Great. Another thing to take care of that Goro doesn’t need.

“What a thoughtful gesture,” is what Goro ends up saying. He balances the spiky bastard in one hand and grabs his key with the other, letting them into the building. They start up the stairs. “So how was your day?”

“Great! Except for that sleazy photographer I was telling you about, do you remember him?”

They come to a stop outside Goro’s door. “Mmhm.”

“Well, he’s been annoying, but today he was a total creep. He kept asking the wardrobe lady if they had any shorter skirts, and then out of nowhere he asks us if we’d be cool doing a swimsuit shoot. Back at his place!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I know!”

“No—look!”

Goro rips off the note taped on his door and shoves it under Ann’s nose. She takes it from him, confused. He watches as her eyes widen and her eyebrows rise up as she reads the message left for him.

“ _Hey downstairs neighbor_ ,” she starts, reading aloud. “ _Thanks for the nickname. I do think I make good jokes._ ”

Goro huffs out a heavy breath.

“ _Shame we missed you the night you were out. You would’ve loved our all-night karaoke session._ ” Ann stops to chuckle, like any of this is even remotely amusing. “ _What sort of schedule do you have in mind? I’m waiting with bated breath. Until next time, Joker. PS: A party might help you loosen up a bit, neighbor._ ”

Goro feels his hackles rise just hearing it, even with it coming out of Ann’s innocent mouth. Well—maybe not quite so innocent. She is laughing at Goro, after all.

“This is pretty funny,” Ann says, eyeing the note with an impressed smile on her face. The _impressed_ bit offends Goro personally. “Why’d he call himself Joker?”

“Just something I said to him. He took it and ran with it, I suppose.”

Goro hurries to unlock the door. He’s not sure why these notes rattle him so much. They just do. He hadn’t intended to start an epistolary war with his original message, just get his point across and receive a due apology. The fact that the neighbor who’s writing him these notes happens to be a quick-witted sparring partner isn’t something Goro anticipated.

“But, man,” Ann says. “That part about you needing to loosen up made steam come out of your ears.”

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Goro observes, tossing his key on the counter. “Unbelievable. As if I’m the one who needs to change _my_ habits.”

As if on cue, sound starts drifting out from the ceiling. It starts out indistinguishable, until it rises like a crescendo, volume climbing until it’s made clear to be classical music. Very loud classical music.

Haydn, Goro thinks.

Ann wrinkles her nose. “Is that—what is that?”

“That,” Goro mutters, sneering at the ceiling, “is my neighbor.”

“Wow. That _is_ loud.” At Goro’s withering look, she holds up her hands in defense. “How was I supposed to know it was this bad?”

“I did _tell_ you,” says Goro dryly.

She ignores that particular comment. “Well, come on! Let’s go up there and tell that guy to knock it off.”

That aggressive blond’s expression of complete disinterest crosses Goro’s mind. Although, with Ann as back-up, he might have more luck. 

They march their way out of Goro‘s apartment and up the stairs, Ann leading the way. The violin strings get louder and louder still as they ascend the steps, so loud that Goro’s not sure anyone inside will actually hear him knocking. Ann is undeterred however, and pounds on the door with her fist.

“Helloooo?” she calls out through the cello part. “We know somebody’s in there!”

The music comes to an abrupt stop. Goro squares his shoulders, bracing himself for the blond cannonball.

The door flings open. A tall man in a button-down stands on the other side. There’s a smear of blue paint down his cheek.

His eyes fall upon Ann, then widen. Almost comically. He seems momentarily stunned into speechlessness.

“Uh, hi,” Ann says.

His eyes are glued to her as she speaks. Goro is fairly certain he hasn’t even noticed Goro’s existence.

“You…” he starts, transfixed. “You are the one I’ve been searching for.”

A moment passes. Then Ann turns bright red. “What?!” she screeches.

The man reaches a hand out towards her, as if in reverence, before remembering himself and pulling it back to his side. “My artistic muse,” he says, mostly to himself. “The beauty I’ve been called upon to capture. The goddess of my canvas.”

This guy’s lost it. He’s a total loon, and that’s why he has no notion of manners, or volume control.

“Uhhh,” Ann says. She darts a quick sidelong glance in Goro’s direction. “We’re here ‘cause this guy—” she points at Goro “—lives right below you and things have been pretty loud. Could we maybe come in?”

The man snaps out of his daydream, blinking to attention and wrenching his mooned gaze away from Ann. “Of course,” he says, stepping aside. “Please. Come in.”

They step into the apartment like rabbits creeping hesitantly into a fox’s lair. Goro still hasn’t figured out if this man is a pervert or just a bit kooky around the edges. He does seem to be an artist, after all, if the many canvases stacked against walls are any clue, and artists tend to be a bit… unique.

There’s a canvas in the middle of the room, too, propped up on an easel. The painting therein is little more than streaks of blue so far, but it looks roughly like it’s meant to be a stormy seaside.

It’s not exactly the bachelor pad Goro was envisioning. He was expecting kegs of beer and trash in every corner and maybe even a few posters of half-naked girls on the walls. This artist’s den is a stark contrast from the bro headquarters in Goro’s mind.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man says. “My name is Yusuke Kitagawa. I attend Tokyo University of the Arts, and I humbly ask you to become my model!”

“Model?!” Ann repeats.

This entire day is just getting stranger and stranger. Kitagawa nods vigorously, gesturing to the blank canvases at large.

“I’ve been struggling to break past a dry spell as of late,” he explains. “But the moment I saw you, I realized that you were what I was waiting for! For us to meet right when I was in the throes of my own artist’s block—fate must’ve brought you here!”

These Shakespearean monologues are getting a bit much for Goro. “Actually, I did,” he says, getting to the point. “My name is Goro Akechi. I live directly below you.” He brandishes the note taped on his door. “Are you the one who’s been writing these?”

Kitagawa turns to look at Goro, but with the reluctance of a man forced to look away from a natural wonder. Goro decides to only be slightly offended.

“You must be the neighbor Ryuji told me about,” Kitagawa says.

“Ryuji?”

“I believe you met him the other night.”

Goro remembers. “I see. And he’s been writing these notes?”

“No, my other roommate has.”

“Your other roommate?” Ann asks. “Woah, how many people live here?”

“Just the three of us.”

“And is he here?”

“No, he’s at work.” Kitagawa tilts his head. “Should I leave a message for you?”

Goro sighs. This is like a wild goose chase. “No. Actually, yes. Just tell him that I don’t need to _loosen up_.” He remembers why they actually came up here in the first place. “And would you mind keeping it down?”

“Oh yeah,” Ann says. “What was with that loud music?”

Kitagawa swings back to Ann like a compass finding true north. “I’ll have to apologize for that. Music sometimes helps me focus on my art and prime the pump of my creativity, so to say.”

Goro resists the urge to roll his eyes. Prime the pump of his creativity? He needs to get Ann out of here _now_.

“So what do you say?” Kitagawa says—begs, really. “Will you be the model for my paintings?”

Ann looks like she’s genuinely considering it, which for Goro, is the green light to go back downstairs. He grabs her elbow and tugs. “We should leave,” he says.

“I… I’ll think about it,” Ann says, letting herself be pulled to the door.

“Yes, please do!” Kitagawa calls after her.

When Goro shuts the door behind them, he feels like he’s just escaped a surreal snowglobe world. Surely none of that just now actually happened. He turns to Ann for support affirming that it didn’t.

Ann’s staring off, eyes distant, mind elsewhere. She plays idly with a pigtail. “You think he really believes I’m a… goddess of canvas?”

Good god. “He’s a wordsmith, Ann,” he warns. And a weird one, at that. “Don’t tell me any of that actually worked on you.”

She shrugs. Goro knows this to mean that she disagrees with him, but she knows from past experience that trying to win a debate against him is fruitless.

“Don’t go,” he demands. “Ann. Tell me you won’t.”

“I won’t!” she snaps. She’s still tugging on her hair, now fiddling with her barrette. Goro knows a tell when he sees one. He narrows his eyes.

“Ann,” he starts.

“It’s fine,” she insists. It is most certainly not. “Come on. Let’s go back to your place.”

She heads for the stairs, as if nothing just happened in there, but Goro has gained enough insight into her mind as her friend that he knows exactly what’s going on inside it. Ann suffers from the same vainglorious desire for praise that Goro does—a side effect of modeling for far too many vapidly judgmental audiences—and Kitagawa hit all the right marks complimenting Ann on her depth, her paintable beauty.

Wonderful. His best friend getting emotionally invested in one of his imbecile neighbors is exactly what Goro needs right now.

\--

_Joker,_

_Thank you for the advice, and for making assumptions about my life. However, an obnoxious party isn’t my idea of ‘loosening up.’ If you’d like me to do so, let’s work out that schedule. Limiting noise after nine p.m. would be a good start._

_I met your other roommate. Tell him to keep the music down._

_Your downstairs neighbor_

\--

Goro steals away to Leblanc for lunch the next day when he sees a light at the end of the tunnel of his inbox. It’s out of the way and there’d certainly be closer places to stop and get a coffee, but a hankering for curry draws Goro out to Yongen-Jaya anyway.

“Hey,” Kurusu says from behind the counter when Goro steps inside, smile growing. So maybe it wasn’t just the curry that pulled Goro here.

“I was hoping you’d be working here today,” Goro says.

Time seems to pass as if frozen in a block of ice while Goro frets over if that was too intimate a thing to say. What feels like ten years later, Kurusu laughs. “Funny. I was hoping you’d come today.”

Oh. _Oh._ Okay.

Kurusu gestures to the seat at the counter that Goro sat at before. Goro slides into it, setting his briefcase down between his feet.

“I must admit, I’ve been looking forward to trying the curry you mentioned,” Goro admits. “Does it pair well with the coffee?”

Kurusu sets his elbows on the counter, leaning closer like he’s sharing a secret. “Depends on the coffee,” he says. “Are you up for another surprise?”

“Well, seeing as you haven’t steered me wrong yet…”

Kurusu grins and gets to work. This time around, Goro’s treated to a plate of aromatic curry alongside a cup of coffee. It’s not anything like the food Goro usually eats, which tends to be either takeout at home, craft services at TV stations, or during Shido-funded events and meetings, artfully presented plates of overpriced single-bite dishes. This plate isn’t trying to impress anyone: its presentation is badly lacking and the portion is frankly mountainous, but Goro’s intrigued nonetheless.

He takes a bite. The first hit is all sharp spiciness, but in its wake trail smooth textures, rich flavors, subtle hints of rare spices.

“It’s… very good,” Goro says. “As good as the coffee, I must say.”

Kurusu tells him about the coffee he’s chosen for him today—Mexican Altura—while he cleans up Goro’s curry plate after he’s finished. He has a very mellifluous voice. Listening to him is oddly soothing, Goro finds. He gets slightly lost in it, realizing as much when he notices that Kurusu’s been staring at him for much too long, waiting for a response to a question Goro hasn’t caught.

“Sorry,” he says, wincing. “Please, say that again.”

“Sounds like somebody needs more caffeine.”

Goro chuckles. “Yes, that must be it.”

Kurusu doesn’t seem offended. “Busy time at work?”

“Not exactly.” At Kurusu’s look of interest, Goro decides to unload the story. “I recently had to move into a new apartment, and I’ve had trouble as of late with the neighbors directly above me. They’ve been keeping me from getting a good night’s rest with their noise.”

When Goro looks up, Kurusu’s stopped mid-wipe of the plate in his hand, frozen. He stutters back into action after a moment.

“What sort of things have they been doing?”

“Anything from parties to exercise to music,” Goro says. “It’s altogether possible they think I’m the strange one, complaining in the first place. We’re about the same age, my neighbors and I, and I suppose I should be throwing parties of my own instead of wanting a quiet evening in to read.”

That might’ve been too much. Goro tries to laugh it off.

He scratches at his forehead. “I’m sorry, did I overshare?”

“No!” Kurusu hurries to say. “No, I’m just—sorry that’s happening to you.”

“I’ve tried talking to them,” Goro says. “We have a bit of a… well, a battle, at the moment. Through notes.”

“Notes?”

“Yes, we slip them under each other’s doors. Or tape them there.” It feels childish saying it out loud, barely a shred more mature than passing folded gossip in school. “That sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

Kurusu doesn’t answer for a moment. “Maybe,” he finally admits. “But there’s nothing wrong with that.”

Goro mulls over that for a spell. There’s never been room in his life for _silliness_. Shido would certainly never approve. His cool and calm public image would be completely shattered if everyone saw what sort of messages Goro Akechi passive-aggressively stuffs under the door of his neighbors.

“You know what?” Kurusu says, shaking the suds off his hands as he retreats from the sink. “I was wrong.”

“Hm?”

“About the coffee. It’s not caffeine you need.” An almost shy smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Fresh air would be better. A change of scenery.”

Goro checks his wristwatch. His lunch break is nearly over, and he has plenty of work waiting for him.

He glances at Kurusu’s small smile. Maybe he does have room to be a little silly.

“Do you have somewhere in mind?”

“How about Inokashira Park?”

“The park,” Goro repeats, considering. He hasn’t been there in a while. All that bright green nature and warm sunlight sounds much more appealing than his work desk and the ringing phone and blinking computer on top of it. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. But aren’t you tending the cafe?”

Kurusu gestures to the empty tables behind Goro. “I’ll just have to explain it to all the customers,” he says.

Goro can’t help but chuckle. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

\--

The park turns out to be exactly what Goro didn’t know he needed. The air smells fresh, and the sunlight is rippling on the lake, and every now and then a warm breeze tickles the hair by Goro’s neck. 

And then there’s Kurusu, who is walking alongside him, attentive as Goro talks, nodding at all the right times. He looks different here, outside of the dim lamplight of Leblanc and without an apron tied around his waist. The sunlight keeps glinting off his glasses, making Kurusu squint. For reasons Goro can’t explain, it’s quite endearing.

They stroll by the boats out on the lake. They’re mostly full of couples, leaning close together, sharing laughter. Goro feels a funny little thrill lace down his spine when Kurusu’s elbow gently bumps his a moment later.

“So how did you come to work at Leblanc, Kurusu-kun?”

“I actually used to live there,” Kurusu says. “Up in the attic. Sojiro took me in back in high school when I was sort of going through a rough patch.”

“A rough patch?”

The ghost of a grimace passes through Kurusu’s face. “I was on probation. But that was a while ago now.” He lifts his hand as if to wave away that particular memory. “I moved out after a year, but I’ve worked there ever since I came back to Tokyo.”

Goro’s tactful enough not to press for details on his troubled past. “I see,” he says. “So you like it?”

“I do. I like learning about coffee and cooking.” Kurusu’s shoulder brushes Goro’s. Too softly to be catalogued as intentional or involuntary. “I like seeing the people that come by.”

Goro scrapes up half a laugh. “I’m sure you have many devoted regulars.”

“Well,” Kurusu starts to say. 

He doesn’t get a chance to finish. “Look! Over there!” someone down the path shouts, interrupting him.

“Oh no,” Goro mutters, coming to a stop. He swivels around, pinching the bridge of his nose, but he’s fairly certain the damage is done.

“Akechi? What's wrong?” Kurusu asks.

Goro peeks over his shoulder. The gaggle of girls have started pointing at him, shrieking. Escape feels futile by now, but maybe through the bushes? Or maybe—

Kurusu seems to have noticed as well. “Akechi, who are those people?”

“They’re my…” Goro presses his lips together. “...fans.” He glances over his shoulder again. A groan escapes him; why today, why here, of all the times and places? “Perhaps it would be faster if I just spoke to them and signed a few autographs.”

“ _Autographs?_ ”

He was horribly naive to think that he could have a stroll through the park in broad daylight without something like this happening. He really should’ve warned Kurusu. Goro braces himself for the squealing swarm of bees, but before they reach him, Kurusu’s grabbing his wrist and tugging.

“Akechi-kuuuun! Waaaait!” a girl cries out after him.

“C’mon,” Kurusu says, tugging again.

\--

By skill or by sheer dumb luck, they wind up at the station unscathed, and Goro unambushed. The two of them aren’t Olympic sprinters, but the park has enough twists and turns in the pathways that it’s easy enough to lose Goro’s harem.

The red embarrassment, however, follows Goro all the way to the train.

“I apologize,” Goro says through a sigh, hand rubbing at his temple. The words feel a bit empty after having run from Goro’s rabid fanclub. “I should have told you beforehand. I don’t make a habit of telling people who exactly I am if they don’t recognize my name.”

“Who exactly are you?” Kurusu asks. He sounds more intrigued than upset.

“Ah. I’m perhaps a bit more renowned for my detective work than you realized.” Goro tries to find words that bypass any accidental arrogance. “Over the last few years, I’ve been on several news programs discussing my point of view on cases. I didn’t intend for it to happen, but I’ve amassed some fans in the process.”

The train rattles its way along the rails. Goro lets the movements sway him, if only as a distraction from this conversation. Even if it’s true, there’s something rather narcissistic about confessing to his hordes of enthusiastic fans.

“They’re actually the reason I had to move,” Goro explains. “One particular fan, ah, tracked down my address and spent a distressing amount of time waiting for me to appear. And putting inappropriate things into my mail slot.”

“That’s why you had to move?”

“Yes. Humiliating, isn’t it? My father certainly thought so when he heard about it. He found me a new apartment, but isn’t so receptive now to my complaints about my upstairs neighbors.”

Kurusu blinks. “The… loud ones,” he says slowly.

“Yes, precisely.”

The train starts slowing to arrive at its next stop. It grinds to a halt at the station, doors sliding open. It isn’t until the mechanical voice starts announcing their location that Goro realizes they aren’t on the way back to Leblanc.

“Are we on the right train?” he asks. “We aren’t headed for Yongen-Jaya.”

“Oh—we’re not. I thought of somewhere outdoors a little quieter than the park, if you’re up for it.”

Goro’s already taking an excessively long lunch as it is, if not starting to edge into dinner time. Still, the idea of saying no feels absurd, somehow even more so than skipping out on work.

“I’m intrigued,” Goro says. “Do I get any hints?”

Kurusu scratches the back of his head. “You… might get wet.”

His eyes flicker down to Goro’s outfit, from the immaculate tie to the leather briefcase. He laughs uncertainly.

“I should probably rethink this, shouldn’t I?” he says.

“No,” Goro says. He tries to laugh away how quickly that shot out of him. “I must admit, you certainly have my curiosity piqued.”

His briefcase is worth at least two months of rent plus utilities and isn’t a friend to moisture, but the idea of saying no to Kurusu’s plan is making Goro itchy. He smiles, nothing short of winningly.

Kurusu smiles too. “All right.”

They end up at Ichigaya. Not too many people get off the train here, so Goro has to squeeze his way to the doors, Kurusu leading the way. Once they leave the station, long lines of fishing bays greet them.

Goro’s never gone fishing before. Touching live bait with his bare hands and sitting hunched over a pier in galoshes just doesn’t fit in with his media image, although this doesn’t seem to be a hangout spot for his usual fanbase and/or paparazzi.

Kurusu steps up to chat with a man squatting by fishing equipment. Goro makes out bits and pieces of polite conversation, and when Kurusu turns back around, he has bait and poles in hand.

“Come on,” Kurusu says. “Ready to go fishing?”

“Indeed.”

They find an empty spot near the end of the waterway. It’s weird, sitting on an apple crate with a fishing pole in hand, but there is something oddly soothing about the sounds of the water and the way it ripples under the sunlight. Kurusu explains the basics of the process to him while he prepares the bait on their hooks.

“I have to say,” Goro says, “I’ve never done this before.” He settles into a comfortable position on the crate and looks down at the fishing rod in his hand. He experimentally turns the reel a few times. “I’m not very familiar with the equipment.”

Kurusu scoots closer to him. “Here,” he says. “Just like this.”

He throws his hook into the water with familiar ease, the water pulsing outward in rhythmic circles as the bait splashes in. Goro watches as fish scatter away under the murk of the water, only to lazily swim by once more. Goro follows suit and throws his hook in too.

“It’s mostly just waiting,” Kurusu says. “But it clears the mind a bit.”

“Does your mind often need clearing, Kurusu-kun?”

The smile Kurusu gives him is a little crooked on the side. Adorably, Goro thinks, and then quickly shoves that away. “Doesn’t everybody’s?” Kurusu says.

“Very true.” Goro thinks about the multiple cases and homework and apartment problems swirling around his brain right now. Maybe he can afford to mute them for a bit. “I certainly have a lot on my shoulders right now. This was a thoughtful activity for you to suggest, Kurusu-kun.”

“My friend and I used to do this all the time in high school,” Kurusu explains. “Usually before exams when we were supposed to be studying.”

Goro chuckles. “I can only imagine how your grades suffered.”

“Not as much as you might think,” Kurusu says. “I had to be a good student while I was on probation. I had a lot of eyes watching me.”

Goro readjusts his grip on his fishing rod. He’s usually smooth with his words, always finding the right ones when he needs to, but right now, he’s not sure what to say. Kurusu’s relaxed body language sends a good gauge of his comfort; he’s probably dealt with whatever anger has been left over from his probationary period, but Goro wonders if he’d be comfortable talking about the events that led up to it.

“It wasn’t all bad, though,” Kurusu says, as if sensing that Goro is wondering. “It brought me out to Tokyo. And I made some really good friends.”

“Mm,” Goro says. He tentatively feels out the mood and finds it favorable enough to ask further. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping here, but what exactly caused your probation?” In case he’s ruffled any feathers, he smooths them over with a well-placed compliment. “You strike me as a rather respectful citizen.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Akira says, smiling. “But let’s just say I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I saw a woman being assaulted and stepped in. He didn’t appreciate me intervening.”

“That… that’s rather admirable, Kurusu-kun,” Goro says. “I’m sure many wouldn’t have bothered helping at all. And I presume you saved that woman from immeasurable amounts of trauma.”

Akira stares out over the water. “Maybe,” he says. He seems to think for a moment, then glances at Goro. “I like your perspective on things.”

“My perspective?”

“A lot of people told me I should’ve minded my own business.”

Goro frowns. He watches the bubbles rise on the water a few feet away, tiny signals of movement from the fish. “I’m not too surprised. A lot of the people in power only want things to follow the smoothest course. Any ripples, no matter how warranted they are, are rarely ever appreciated.”

“Talking from experience?”

“Let’s just say it’s a mindset I see all too often with the police, unfortunately,” Goro says, grim. He shakes his head. He doesn’t want to go down that perilous path. “Regardless, I’m glad you were able to live at least a somewhat normal life even while you were on probation.”

“And you?” Akira asks him. “What was high school like for you?”

“Ah.” Goro feels a silence swallow him when he realizes he has no high school memories of his own to match Kurusu’s. None worth sharing, at least. “My teenage experience was quite different, to be honest. 

“Yeah?”

“My mother passed away when I was young, so I spent most of my childhood moving from foster home to foster home. I suppose you could say I didn’t have much of a childhood, at least not in the traditional sense. I was forced to grow up much faster than other kids my age.”

God, did he really just say all that? Goro tires not to unload his sob story to any passing ear. He actually tries to keep it to himself, despite Shido’s continued pushing to use it to garner a bigger audience out of sympathy. Goro doesn’t want to muddle his real past with the person he is on TV, and he certainly doesn’t want to air the dirty laundry of his tragic youth to use as a marketing tool.

Kurusu’s quiet, and his hands are still on his fishing rod. Goro turns to look at him, expecting an uncomfortable silence, but instead, Kurusu’s regarding him with an unreadable gaze. He seems wholly absorbed in the conversation, nearly impressed.

“You know,” Kurusu says slowly. “You’re nothing like I thought you’d be.”

Goro feels the self-consciousness crawl up his neck like a spider even as he tries to ignore it. “Ah. Because of the entire media nonsense, I suppose?” It’s not like Goro wants to be followed around by a harem and cooed at by strangers. It’s the worst kind of attention, sticky and ingenuine. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it turned Kurusu off.

Except that he’s looking at Goro, eyes wide, like he’s let something slip he shouldn’t have. The expression is gone in a second, shaken away quickly. “Right,” Kurusu says. “Yeah. But that’s not—it’s not a big deal.”

Some knot of tension in Goro’s back uncoils. “I’m glad you see it that way,” he says. “This sort of life in the spotlight comes with its share of caveats.”

Kurusu opens his mouth to respond, but it’s then that Goro’s line jerks, something splashing in the water.

“You’ve caught something!” Kurusu says, getting to his feet. “Here—”

Goro pulls back against the bend of his pole as the fish twists under the surface, hands tight. Kurusu quickly tells him what to do, how to reel it in without it escaping, and it only takes one overeager yank for the fish to come lurching out of the water. It splashes over both of them in the process, water flying as the fish wriggles on the hook.

Kurusu is the one to subdue it and hand it off to the employee sitting at the end of the bay, who seems appropriately awed by the fish’s size after learning that Goro’s never fished before. Goro can’t help but preen a little under praise that’s wholly unrelated to his TV smile or his detective work. Exacerbating the matter is the way Kurusu keeps looking at him, full of soft admiration.

“You want to keep going for a bit?” Kurusu asks, motioning to their crates. “I know you might have to go back to—”

“Let’s keep at it,” Goro says, obviously driven reckless by Kurusu’s presence. Out here, surrounded by water and the lulling sound of the passing trains, work feels so, so distant.

He looks at Kurusu, who’s gathering up more bait for them. Goro just wants to hold onto this afternoon for a little bit longer.

\--

There’s a new noise to be heard today from the ceiling when Goro gets home. It takes Goro a second to identify it: high heels. Clacking through the floorboards.

Oh, boy. One of those clowns from above brought a girl home. _How_ is a mystery even Goro’s powers of deductions will never be able to solve.

The clacking continues the entire time Goro toes his shoes off, drops off his briefcase, and looks through the takeout menus leaning against the fridge. What are they doing up there anyway, dancing the tango?

Goro looks up at the ceiling as if in warning. If the evening turns R-rated upstairs, he better not be able to hear it.

He hears feminine laughter chiming downwards. It sounds oddly familiar, that laugh.

Goro stills, listening for it again. No. _No_. It can’t be.

He drops the takeout menus, suddenly a man on a mission. He hastens upstairs, barely able to keep himself from taking two steps at a time.

He knocks politely on the door. Behind it, he hears the heels clacking his way. Closer and closer, closer still, until the door opens, and—

“Ann?!” Goro yells.

There she is, undoubtedly, unmistakably, except for the fact that she’s hanging out in the apartment of Goro’s most annoying rivals. “Oh, shoot,” she mutters.

“What are you _doing_ here?”

He asks the question knowing full well he might not like the answer. Ann bites her bottom lip, sheepish, before she looks carefully over her shoulder. Goro follows her line of sight: there’s Kitagawa, in the living room, preparing paintbrushes. He blinks when he notices Goro in the doorway.

“Oh, hello,” he says. “Were we being too loud?”

The noise is completely irrelevant right now. The important part is that Goro doesn’t want Ann up here, reeled in by an untrustworthy group of ruffians, stomping about with her noisy shoes.

_Right,_ her shoes. Goro looks down at them. He blanches.

“Ann,” he hisses. “Those are your first date shoes.”

Any color that he seems to have lost zooms straight into Ann’s face, her cheeks blooming pink. Goro feels a little nauseated.

“No,” he groans. “No, Ann, no. You’re here to see that—that nutjob?”

She smacks his arm. “I’m just here to model for him!” she insists.

Goro knows better. Goro knows those shoes. He crosses his arms and lets his silence speak his reproof for him.

“You’re welcome to join us,” Kitagawa’s voice drifts over to them. “Sit in on the session, if you like.”

Goro can hardly think of _worse_ ways to spend an evening. “All right,” he says, with a pointed look at Ann.

He takes a seat on the couch, behind the stool where Kitagawa is setting up his easel. If nothing else, he’s cleaned the blue streak of paint off his cheek, so at least he’s observing basic hygiene. The bar is so low that not even a mouse could limbo underneath it. At least while Goro’s here, he can keep Ann from making any fatal mistakes.

“We were just discussing poses before you arrived,” Kitagawa says. “With such graceful lines to her form, I feel it would be advantageous to paint her standing, but at the same time, my model would be more comfortable if she were sitting…”

He seems to be talking less to Goro and more to himself, eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. Goro tries to meet Ann’s eyes in the hopes of having a silent conversation, but she’s too occupied looking everywhere but him, eyes searching the wall. It might be worse than Goro thought. She might not even be here for some sort of egocentric validation; she might actually _like_ this guy. Oh no.

“Say, Kitagawa-kun,” Goro says, cutting into his stream of consciousness. “Do you frequently use models for your art endeavors?”

“Hm?” Kitagawa snaps out of his thoughts. “Oh. To tell you the truth, I usually use emotions and sensations as inspiration for my work. I’ve always wanted to work with a live model, but no one I’ve met has ever captured the spirit I’m looking to immortalize with my paintbrush. Not until I met Takamaki-san, that is.”

Goro’s reaction is just shy of an eyeroll. Ann can’t possibly be buying this contrived speech, all this purple prose. If this isn’t an act, and is truly how Kitagawa thinks, then Goro can only imagine how theatrical his inner monologue must be.

They settle on Ann sitting on the stool, maneuvered to the center of the room to “entice the most charming angles of light to bathe her,” before Yusuke starts painting. Goro watches him, half-expecting the Pollock-ian talent of a toddler, but what he sees actually manages to impress him. Kitagawa’s a good artist, one who wields his brush like some type of magic wand, moving with fast, confident strokes. Goro watches as the white canvas gains depth and color, shadows and light.

When the barest shape of a woman appears within the brushstrokes, Kitagawa pauses in his work. “Say, how would you feel about making this a nude painting?”

Goro feels his eyes just about pop out of his head. Before he can rip Kitagawa’s head clean off his neck, however, Ann’s shooting to her feet.

“What?! No! Absolutely not!”

Kitagawa seems unperturbed by her scandalized screeching. “It would make for a truly fascinating painting. And the human body was never intended to be hidden away—not for art, anyway.”

“D-don’t tell me that was your goal all along!” Ann cries. “You—you just wanted to see me naked?!”

“What?” Kitagawa finally seems to realize that his suggestion isn’t as innocent as he envisioned it to be. “O-of course not! This—this is all about art!”

It’s the wrong thing to say; even Goro knows that much. Ann, in her first date shoes and extra lipstick, is suddenly looking quite snubbed.

“Art. Of course,” she mutters under her breath. Tonight’s obviously going to be a sugar-heavy evening for her. Goro suspects lots of hard candy. “You know what, Kitagawa-kun? I just remembered I need to go.”

Kitagawa springs to his feet. “What? N-no—you can't!”

Being forbidden to do so doesn’t sit all that well with Ann. She huffs, affronted, and grabs her purse from where it’s hanging off the back of a chair. “Oh, I can,” she assures him. “C’mon, Goro, let’s go.”

Goro doesn’t need to be told twice. Wherever this conversation was heading next, Goro has no intention of finding out. He yanks open the front door and Ann marches through it, studiously ignoring the way Kitagawa is hurrying after them, stuttering excuses and explanations. Goro shuts the door in his face.

Out in the hall, Ann steadfastly does not meet Goro’s eyes.

“I told you,” Goro starts to say, ready to say more, but Ann cuts him off.

“Don’t say a thing,” she warns. She looks somehow caught between humiliated and furious, which is a face that brooks no argument. Or gloating, which Goro will just have to do later once she’s calmed down.

\--

_Hey neighbor,_

_It doesn’t seem fair that I get a codename and you don’t. Do you have any ideas?_

_Yusuke says hi. And sorry about what happened with your friend. Will you pass along the message for him?_

_All the best,_

_Joker_

\--

The late lunch Goro indulged in with Kurusu the other day doesn’t fly by Shido. He gets grilled about it the next day during their meeting, specifically if this has anything to do with Goro’s problems with the apartment. That, or has Goro decided now is a good time to be rebellious and unreliable?

Both options are presented with no shortage of dry venom in Shido’s voice. Goro decides not to press the issues with his neighbors, even if the issues have not been even remotely resolved. Actually, they might’ve gotten a bit worse, but Shido isn’t the right person to tell that to.

Ann is. Or at least, Ann would be if she wouldn’t be in a grumpy funk from what happened with Kitagawa the other day. Even though Goro gets where her anger is coming from, he’s starting to think that Kitagawa is less of a deranged pervert and more of a socially-challenged weirdo. Not that he really feels like mediating.

What he feels like more and more these days, actually, is coffee.

“I saw you on TV the other night,” Kurusu says to Goro, almost conspiratorially, over the Leblanc counter.

Goro looks up from his textbooks. “Oh, you did?”

“Yeah. I thought I might find you on a news station if I was lucky.”

“And what did you think?”

Kurusu smiles. He seems to be thinking of the right descriptors, which really only succeed in making Goro antsy. He knows he can look a bit precocious on TV sometimes. Or perhaps even conceited? He’s earned his spots on those shows fair and square, but the questions they ask can sometimes just be so juvenile—

“You were very… insightful,” Kurusu says. “But also different, if you know what I mean.”

“Different?”

“From how you are here. Although I guess that happens when there’s a camera on you.”

Right. The cute barista might also have an effect on Goro’s personality, whether or not he realizes it, but Goro’s made the executive decision to not bring that up.

“Ah. Yes, the cameras do tend to make one hyper-aware of everything,” Goro says. “But I hope you learned something from the show regardless.”

“Yeah. It was about those pickpocketers on the trains.”

Easily one of Goro’s worst ever recordings. He goes hot around the ears just thinking about it. Why, of all his shows, did Kurusu have to stumble over that one?

“And then there was another interview on after that one, about fraud,” Kurusu continues. “Mostly phone call scammers.”

Now _that_ was Goro’s worst ever recording. It was a puff piece—a total frivolity—no meat to its bones whatsoever—

“You’re very charming,” Kurusu admits. “On TV, I mean.”

Goro pretends not to notice his heart ballooning in his chest. “Ah, I see. I hope you’re not implying that I’m the opposite in person,” he teases.

“Totally boring,” Kurusu deadpans.

Goro leans into the teasing. Is it still teasing? It feels dangerously like flirting. “Thankfully, I have a nice smile to make up for it, wouldn’t you say?”

Behind Goro, the door jingles, and an older couple comes hobbling in. They recognize Kurusu, who helps seat them at a booth by the door, and Goro watches as they talk for a bit, catching up. There’s something about Kurusu that’s easy to open up to, some magnetic pull that Goro’s fallen in the orbit of. He watches as Kurusu makes small talk with the other guests, making them laugh without having to say much, and wonders if this mounting affection is a mutual feeling. It seems almost impossible that he could be alone in it; it would be unthinkingly unfair to have to face that this attraction is unbalanced. But then again, Goro has the suspicion that the universe doesn’t like being all that fair to him.

He tries to distract himself from those nagging thoughts with his textbooks. The quiet chatter and hissing coffee machine and clinking cups creates a cozy soundtrack to Goro’s work, and he gets a good amount of preliminary research done on two papers while he’s there.

He would probably get even more work done if the smell of Kurusu’s aftershave wouldn’t keep dragging his attention away every time Kurusu walks by him.

Is it normal to have these thoughts? Goro hasn’t had them in so long. He’s kept himself busy with other things, and given effort to professional endeavors, and also has just been barricading emotions up inside himself for years. Noticing that they’re starting to ooze out feels as dangerous as it does exciting. Maybe something he’s never allowed himself to think about having isn’t actually that unobtainable.

Ann would probably be able to give him advice. If Goro plucks up the courage to endure the mortification of telling her about his—god forbid—crush, he might be able to gain valuable insight. Even if he can already imagine her big, shocked eyes and high-pitched shrieking and wants to catapult himself off to the moon just entertaining the idea of that conversation.

Kurusu stops him right as he starts to pack up his things for the day. The rainy weather has been drawing people in for warm coffee, so Kurusu’s been busier than usual, but even with his arm full of a tray of dirty cups, he’s still looking at Goro like he’s the only thing worth paying attention to. Goro thinks back to his earlier worry of disproportionate attraction and feels it start to melt away.

“Hey,” Kurusu says—nearly whispers. He licks his lips before he speaks again. “The next time you come here… could I take you to dinner? Somewhere other than here, I mean.”

He sounds nervous, words a little rushed. Goro watches him lick his lips again and feels some of those nerves infect him too. “Oh,” he says, losing all sense of eloquence. Treating this nonchalantly feels like a mistake, but treating it too seriously also feels like a misstep. “I’d like that.”

Kurusu smiles, his relief palpable. “Great. Until next time, then.”

\--

The classical music is at an unbearable blare when Goro comes home later. There’s also a note that’s been slid under the door that Goro almost slips on when he steps inside. He grabs it, expecting more facetiousness from Joker, but this note looks different: instead of black scribbles, it looks like an elegant blue fountain pen was the weapon of choice for this particular message.

_Can we talk? It is urgent._

The handwriting is unfamiliar. But it’s also got an artistic flair to it that gives Goro an idea as to who the author is.

He doesn’t want to deal with this, not after his pleasant afternoon of unwinding over coffee at Leblanc. Unthinking, he seizes his mop out of the closet and bangs it against the ceiling. The music stops after the fourth bang.

It isn’t until, twenty seconds and one eager knock on his door later, that Goro realizes he should’ve just tolerated the music. Who knows what he has to endure now that his neighbors know he’s home.

He opens the door, and sure enough, Kitagawa is waiting for him.

“You're back,” Kitagawa says, breathless. “Did you see my note?”

“...I did, yes.”

“Ah, good.” He slides into Goro’s apartment, apparently too wrapped up in his own stressful woe to notice he hasn’t been invited in.

There are paint flecks on him again, but this time on his hands. Dots of warm colors, oranges and reds.

“It’s about Takamaki-san,” Kitagawa says. “I’m afraid I frightened her off.”

Not the wording Goro would use. He fights to keep the scoff back. “I believe she felt objectified,” he says.

Kitagawa paces to the other side of the room. “That was never my intention!” he says. “All I wanted was to contain the cosmic magnitude of her beauty within my brushstrokes.”

“Ah—while nude?”

Kitagawa seems unperturbed. “Clothes are a barrier of our true selves, a curtain that must be drawn for art—you understand, don’t you?”

Goro understands—just not what Kitagawa wants him to understand. He understands exactly what it is that’s elusively under Kitagawa’s nose that he isn’t thinking to analyze. Possibly because he’s too busy thinking about Ann nude.

Goro decides—out of the goodness of his ridiculous heart—to throw the guy a rope. “Kitagawa-kun, if I may speak plainly,” he says. “I believe you and Ann had different goals when you met up.”

Kitagawa blinks, bemused. “Different goals?”

“Yes. You were focused on your art, but Ann simply wanted to get to know you. It was perhaps a bit insulting when she found out you were wholly focused on your painting.”

Kitagawa blinks again. He does, however, seem to be mulling over what Goro’s said to him. “I believe I understand,” he eventually says. “Should I... apologize?”

“Yes, that would be a wise course of action.” Goro crosses his arms. “Just keep in mind that she may have no interest in accepting your apology whatsoever.”

Kitagawa nods slowly. “She deserves to hear it regardless,” he says. It earns him at least a few points in Goro’s book, so there’s that. “Can I ask you for her number?”

Goro’s moral compass teeters dangerously. It would be wrong to hand out a friend’s phone number without their knowledge, but on the other side, Goro feels it would be an apt consequence for foolishly deciding to model for a stranger. And not just any stranger, but an annoying stranger Goro had _warned her away from_.

“All right,” he says.

\--

After Kitagawa leaves, Goro spends his evening very productively, not thinking about Kurusu’s dinner invitation at all. He even goes ten, fifteen minutes without obsessing over it, which feels like an achievement in its own right.

The most vexing part is just trying to figure out what the context of the offer is. The intentions. Goro has a guess—more like a deduction—but to guess something like this incorrectly would absolutely be the worst sort of humiliation. Goro would have to never go to Leblanc again. He would even be forced to consider Ann’s—repeated—offer to give him a haircut and a closet makeover, if only to better disguise himself in public.

The thing is, there were moments where it felt like Kurusu was flirting with him, but then the pendulum of doubt swings back into place, reminding Goro that he really has no idea what flirting looks like in the wild. It’s so easy to recognize it on TV, or when Ann’s doing it, or identify the urge in himself, but out in reality, when it’s focused on him—

Stomping from upstairs yanks him away from worrying about his love life. It sounds like there’s a pattern, a rhythm to the jumps. Seems to be exercise time again.

As annoying as it is, it does get Goro out of his own headspace. He gets to his feet to clean up the dishes of his leftovers. What does it matter if Kurusu was or was not flirting with him? What does it matter what dinner is supposed to imply? To save himself the headache, Goro’s going to assume it just means _food_.

Joker’s last message, sitting on the kitchen counter, catches Goro’s eye. He hasn’t written back yet, but the annoying symphony of thumping from upstairs is giving him incentive to. He seizes his pen.

_Joker,_

_I spoke to Kitagawa. If he wants to make amends, it’s now in his power to do so._

_Why do we need codenames, exactly?_

Goro can make out the sound of skidding sneakers through the ceiling. Maybe he’s being too nice with these notes. Rascals rarely listen to strongly-worded reprimands; they listen to people who speak their language. Maybe Goro should butter their doorknob, or sign their address up for a bunch of spam mail. Would Ann help with the buttering? She could possibly infiltrate the premises and do it inside the apartment too…

Goro chastises himself. Such things would be rather juvenile. And god only knows what the retaliation would be. Goro could come home to his door broken down and all his furniture covered in plastic wrap. As adolescent as the battle of notes is, Goro knows it’s still the less complicated option.

Even with the idiocy of _codenames_.

He folds the note together and drops it off upstairs.

\--

_Hey, thanks for helping Yusuke. He owes you one. And so do the rest of us up here, because your intervention meant he turned off his music. Even Vivaldi gets to be too much at some point._

_In regards to the codenames: why not? Unless you’d like to tell me your real name?_

_Joker_

\--

A week after Goro plays unwilling arbiter between his neighbor and his best friend, Ann calls him. He almost doesn’t pick up in case it’s little more than an attempt to chew Goro out for handing out her personal information without permission, but it turns out to be an invitation to go shopping. That in of itself might as well be his punishment; Ann’s shopping trips are nothing short of endurance marathons.

“We could grab dinner first and then hit the shops,” Ann suggests.

“Well,” Goro says. He was really planning on going to Leblanc tonight, not that he can tell her about that. The phone call would literally never end. Also, it’s either spend the night having dinner with Kurusu, or watch Ann try on shoes identical to ones she already owns for four hours.

His pause is too long. Ann’s suspicion creeps into her voice. “Do you have plans?” she asks. She’s like a bloodhound who’s caught a scent. “Tell me.”

Goro’s brain whirs into action. She can recognize his TV voice, the one ideal for telling sugary lies. She can recognize his work voice too, the one great for pretending to be interested in other people’s lives while he’s at the station. He’ll have to go with his usual voice and hope for the best.

“It’s not what you think,” he says, which isn’t a complete lie. He barely knows what to think himself of the evening ahead. What it’s going to be, what he wants it to be. “I’m just meeting a friend.”

There’s another long pause. Goro can see Ann in his mind’s eye, narrowing her eyes. Probably wondering what other friends Goro possibly has. He should’ve said colleague. _Colleague_. Rookie mistake.

“What kind of friend?” she asks slowly. Her skepticism starts to give way to something much more horrifying: excitement. “Goro. Are you going on a _date_?”

_I don’t know,_ Goro wants to scream. He wishes he did, and then he’d have a better grasp on what to wear.

“It’s just dinner,” Goro says, which is the frustrating truth. He’s glad Ann can’t see how hot he is in the face right now. “Nothing to tell, I assure you.” So far.

“You liar,” Ann says. “I’m going to want all the details tomorrow, you know.”

“Ann,” Goro starts, helpless.

“Oh, and don’t wear your sweater vest.”

“ _Ann_.”

“Wear your button-down instead. And don’t be afraid to leave a few buttons open.”

He hangs up. Then he stuffs his vest back into his closet and returns to square one. He stares at all his clothes for another fifteen minutes, wondering why his wardrobe is so boring, before he decides that this is absurd; tonight might be nothing more than a few friends getting food together. He’s just going to wear the button-down and be done with it.

Not because Ann told him to. Just because.

He scribbles a note together for Joker before he leaves, taping it on his neighbor’s door as he heads out to Leblanc.

_Joker,_

_Please pass along the message that I’m equally grateful that the classical music has quieted down. The silence is much appreciated._

_Perhaps dealing with all that noise gave you sympathy for my situation?_

_Codenames it is. I’ll go with Crow._

\--

Only the irrational part of his brain can make sense of Goro’s nerves before he heads to Leblanc. The rational bits are shaking their heads, disappointed, at how Goro’s stomach is flipping over itself like a snowball down a hill the closer he gets to the cafe.

Sakura is manning the counter when Goro comes in, which should alleviate his anxiety, but rather only makes him wonder if all those jitters were for nothing. It hadn’t occurred to him that Kurusu might not be working tonight, but of course he can’t be here all the time, and it’s not like he knew Goro was coming.

“Hey,” Sakura says when he notices him. A funny smile crooks his mouth. “Akira’ll be back in a few.”

Is he that obvious? Goro clears his throat and takes a seat at the counter. Why didn’t he bring his damn briefcase? “Oh, no worries,” he says. “Could I trouble you for a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

Sakura goes about preparing it. When he puts it in front of Goro, he’s still wearing that silly little smirk. Is Goro wearing his crush on his chest like a nametag, or what?

Before he can subtly inquire about it, Kurusu comes in the door, holding shopping bags full of coffee beans. His eyes go large when they fall on Goro.

“Hey,” Sakura says. “Your friend stopped by.”

“I can see that,” Kurusu says. He hurries to put the bags down behind the counter. “Akechi. Hey. I didn’t know you were coming in today.”

“Ah, yes, I figured I would. If this is a bad time, however—”

“No!” Kurusu says. “It’s a great time. Do you want some coffee?”

Goro looks down at the cup in front of him. It’s still more than halfway full. “Sakura-san was nice enough to serve me already.”

“Right.”

He sounds a bit flustered, and it occurs to Goro that Kurusu might be just as nervous as Goro is. In a fit of bravery, torn forward by the confidence of his TV self, Goro says, “Would you be in the mood for that dinner you promised me today?”

Kurusu blinks. Sakura squeezes by him just to elbow him in his back. “Yeah,” he says. “I just need to—just a second.”

He disappears into the bathroom around the corner. In his absence, the silence in the cafe is unthinkingly awkward, so Goro tries to fill it by clinking his spoon around his cup as he stirs.

“He’s been hoping you’d show up,” Sakura says to him.

It takes Goro another moment to realize that that smug look on Sakura’s face is more about Kurusu than it is about him. A little thrill curlicues through Goro’s stomach, right alongside the urge to start asking probing questions. How much does Kurusu like him? Is this seriously a date? What does Sakura know?

Before Goro can tactfully launch an interrogation, Kurusu comes back out of the bathroom, looking a little more composed. It looks like he tried to brush his hair, which has somehow only made it a bit wilder.

“Ready to go?” he asks Goro.

Goro’s stomach goes snowballing down the hill again. “Absolutely.”

\--

They wind up at a sushi restaurant in Ginza. The place is expensive enough that prices are missing from the menu, which is starting to give Goro hope that this is, in fact, a date.

“You know, I would’ve been happy to have dinner with you at Leblanc,” Goro says as a waiter puts a glamorous plate of sushi in front of him. “Although, I suppose you might want a break from cooking now and then.”

“I don’t mind cooking for you,” Kurusu says. He gives Goro another one of those disarmingly warm smiles. _Please let this be a date._ “But I thought a change of scenery might be nice.”

“Well, I appreciate the invite,” Goro says. He decides to prod just a little bit. “Things have been stressful for me lately, so dinner with a friend is a welcome respite.”

“Dinner with a friend,” Kurusu repeats. “Mm.”

Goro prods further. “Unless... it’s something else?”

Kurusu suddenly seems fascinated by the piece of sushi he’s dipping into soy sauce, staring intently at it and only it. He licks his lips, a quick dart of tongue that Goro almost misses. “Do you want it to be?”

Goro chuckles to distract from the fact that his palms are sweating. “You don’t make this easy, do you, Kurusu-kun?” He puts down his chopsticks. “Truth be told, I’d like this to be a date.”

Kurusu doesn’t pause. “Then it’s a date,” he says.

Oh.

So it’s a date. It’s a date. Just like that. Kurusu looks up from his sushi to smile at him, just something small and private, and Goro feels his brain cells evaporate away. Suddenly it feels like Goro’s allowed to appreciate how appealing Kurusu’s fingers look working those chopsticks, or how his knee keeps occasionally bumping into Goro’s under the table.

“So,” Kurusu says. “How are things going with your neighbors?”

Goro holds back an eyeroll. “They’re still infuriating, if that’s what you’re asking,” he says. “One of them has somehow roped my best friend into their charm, to make it all worse.”

Kurusu’s mouth twitches. “Charm?”

Charm? Did Goro say charm? “Well, my friend certainly seems charmed by something,” he says very quickly. “I’m unfortunately still on the side of annoyed.”

“Are you still sending notes back and forth?”

“ _Yes_. Not that I think they’re actually reading them.” Goro draws a piece of sushi up to his mouth, but stops halfway when he thinks of something else that’s infuriating him. “And now— _now_ we need codenames.”

“Codenames?”

Goro makes a noise, something dismissive. “His idea,” he mutters. “I’m going along with it because I’d rather not he find out my real identity. As you may remember, it, ah—comes with certain caveats.”

Kurusu nods, right before something past Goro’s shoulder catches his attention. “Speaking of.”

“Hm?”

Goro follows the trail of Kurusu’s eyeline, where a teenage girl out to eat with her family is staring over at Goro none too subtly. When Goro notices her, she looks away fast enough to suffer whiplash. Goro rubs at his temple.

“My apologies, Kurusu-kun,” he says through a sigh. “I was hoping we could have a more private evening than last time, but—”

Kurusu surges forward, and before Goro can comprehend what’s happening, Kurusu’s kissing him— _kissing him_ —and wow, this really, truly is a date.

It’s over too fast, bordering on chaste. Kurusu’s pink in the cheeks, his hand tentatively curling around Goro’s knee under the table.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “I think it’s nice that a big celebrity makes time to spend with me.”

Goro holds a hand over his red-hot face. “Kurusu-kun—”

“Akira.”

“Pardon?”

“Call me Akira. Please?”

Goro’s heart flutters dangerously. “Only if you promise not to refer to me again as a _big celebrity_.”

Akira smiles. “Done.”

He reaches for his chopsticks again, which he put down sometime during their kiss, to grab another piece of sushi. Suddenly the sushi feels completely unnecessary, little more than a social requirement to eat food together before making out on a couch becomes acceptable. 

“So,” Akira says, but even his voice sounds a little wobbly. “How was work today?”

\--

Akira and him exchange phone numbers before they part ways for the night, right before Akira kisses him goodnight. It’s another one of those logic-warping, brain-twisting kisses that leaves Goro a little dazed, and it’s not until Goro’s closed his apartment door behind him that his legs solidify again.

That was a date. That was a real date, and a good one at that. Goro can’t even remember the last time he had one of those.

He’s buzzing too much to do anything but replay the evening in his head. His lips are still tingling from Akira’s goodbye kiss, making it impossible to focus on emails or do laundry or even flick through the news channels. He feels like he’s having an experience always denied him, an almost rite of passage that everybody else got to have years ago while he was juggling school and work and Shido like some sort of circus act. It’s all caught up to him now, leaving him a mushy lovestruck teenager who can’t stop thinking about how nice his date smelled tonight. He brushes his teeth thinking about it, and he goes to bed thinking about it, and it’s a miracle he doesn’t dream about it.

“I want to hear all about the guy,” is the first thing Ann says to him the next day. The second is, “here, take this,” right before she dumps three dozen takeout containers in his arms and lets herself into Goro’s apartment.

The takeout smells like the restaurant down the street that she knows Goro’s fond of. Bribery food.

“What guy?” Goro asks as he puts the boxes down on the counter, purposefully not meeting her critical eyes.

She isn’t amused by his coy approach and slams her palms down on his kitchen counter. “The guy you blew me off for last night, dummy. Now spill! Who is he?”

Goro sneaks a glance. Her eyes are wide, probing. He supposes he can reward her with a bit of information in exchange for bringing dinner. The scent of sauteed snap peas is luring him in. 

“It’s just someone I met at a coffee shop,” he says. He’s trying to be nonchalant, but a traitorous little smile tugging on his mouth is betraying his mask.

Ann, naturally, notices. She swats him in the arm. “You met someone and didn’t tell me?!” she shrieks. “Goro!”

“It was _new_ ,” Goro stammers, drawing himself up. “I don’t tell you about every single person I meet every day.”

“I thought it was obvious I want to at least be informed about the _cute_ ones,” Ann says, groaning. She looks at Goro like he’s committed a crime. “Now tell me everything already!”

Goro is never one to hand over sensitive information so easily. She should know better. “Fine,” he says. “But only if you tell me what’s going on with Kitagawa.”

That carves a chink into her composure. Her eyes go wide, blinking, before she hurries to school herself back into neutrality. “Kitagawa?” she says, voice high. Those acting chops of hers are truly incredible. “Why do you ask?”

She’s aiming for nonchalant. The sound of her voice, oppressively casual, makes Goro suspicious. 

“Just checking in,” he says. “Have you heard from him since?”

“Oh. Uh.” There’s a pregnant pause during which Ann seems to be battling with herself over if lying is a good plan, or a supremely bad idea because Goro is essentially a human lie-detector. She fusses with a pigtail. “Well, he called to apologize.”

“Did he?”

Ann hustles around the kitchen to open Goro’s cutlery drawer, then spends way longer than necessary grabbing utensils for them both.

“Yeah, he did,” she says to the forks.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what’s happened since?”

Ann huffs out an exhale, then looks at Goro like he already knows the answers to his questions and needs to stop prodding around. Prodding is one of Goro’s best skills, right up there with deductions—the latter having already hinted to him as to where this is going—but after all her pestering him about his love life, Goro feels like he’s well and truly earned this.

He leans expectantly closer, eyebrows up. Ann huffs again. “He asked me to come with him to the museum in Ueno this weekend and I told him I would. Happy?”

Happy isn’t the word Goro would use, but neither is surprised. He should’ve figured out ages ago that Ann wouldn’t be letting this one go that easily. He opens his mouth to protest, or at the very least suggest cautionary measures, but Ann beats him to it.

“Anyway!” she says loudly. “Can we get back to your guy now?”

_Your guy_. Goro doesn’t have a guy. He has a—person he’s interested in. He aims for light and casual as he says, “What is it you’d like to know?”

“Everything!” she demands. “What’s he look like? What’s his name? Is he a good kisser?”

Goro’s never seen this rabid anxiety on Ann before, and realizes that years of Goro being too celibate to have a proper discussion about his dating life have now caught up with her. She looks thirsty for the details, and Goro, who usually feels like he’s holding a live grenade when forced to talk about his real feelings, strangely enough actually wants to tell her about them.

“His name is Akira.” Just saying his name sends Goro’s heart spinning. “Sae-san recommended a cafe for me in Yongen-Jaya, and we met when he served me a cup of coffee.” Her last question burns him, compelling him to answer. He grabs one of the takeout boxes, sliding it across the counter. “And yes, he is.”

Ann squeals. “Oh my god, seriously?” This conversation would be slightly embarrassing if the inner monologue of the pubescent part of Goro’s, always denied these schoolgirl impulses of love, wasn’t saying exactly the same thing. “And he’s a barista? Oooh! All the free coffee you want!” She hands Goro a fork. “When do I get to meet him?”

“Not soon,” Goro says. “I mean—not _yet_.” 

Ann grins at him, poking him in the arm. “Not _ashamed_ of me, are you?”

“You know better than to ask,” Goro says, which is the truth. Of course he’s not. It has nothing to do with Ann, but more with the fact that this thing with Akira feels so sweet and special, unlike anything he’s ever had before, that he can’t help but feel distrust toward it, like one uncoordinated movement will send it toppling. Right now it’s safe within Goro’s own grasp, or at least, at safe as it can be in hands like Goro’s. Adding in extra hands just feels indelicate.

“Come onnn,” she needles. “I’ll be extra nice!”

“Later,” he tells her. He opens the takeout box and takes a moment to gather some rice together. “When—when I’m sure.”

“That you really like him?”

No, Goro’s already fully aware of that. _Really like_ might even be a bit too weak. As it stands, he already feels like he spends most of his days marking time until he can walk into Leblanc and smell the ground beans and feel that bone-deep coziness that comes with seeing Akira’s face.

_When I’m sure it won’t fall apart just yet_ , Goro can’t help but think. So many things in his life do, and most often abruptly, always when he isn’t expecting the shambles. And this—this is something he wants to keep safe from all that for as long as he can.

“What were the rest of your questions?” Goro asks. 

If Ann realizes it’s a diversionary tactic, she doesn’t point it out, perhaps deciding that the allure of quizzing Goro further about his beau outweighs any other discussions. She leans her elbows on the counter, beaming.

“I have plenty,” Ann says. “You’re free all day, right?”

\--

_Crow it is. Can I ask why?_

_This doesn’t mean you’ll stop sending us notes if we put a scarecrow by our door, does it?_

_Joker_

\--

He can’t make it to Leblanc for lunch the next few days, the work from his caseload keeping him too busy to even daydream of wasting the day away in Akira’s company letting his brain turn to marmalade watching Akira’s hands smoothly work the coffee machine. There’s nothing stopping him from leaving work on the dot, however, and going to Yongen-Jaya for dinner.

He realizes as he sits on the train, the start of rush hour squeezing in, that he knows this route by heart by now. He rather likes this addition to his routine, having a place to look forward to going after the work and school day. And then there’s the simmering excitement of never knowing just when dropping by for an innocent cup of coffee will turn into another date, or perhaps even a few kisses over the counter—

Well, no need for imagination when the real thing is right in front of him, Goro thinks as Leblanc comes into view. He takes a step inside, the smell of brewing coffee now a familiar comfort, and finds Ann sitting at the counter.

Wait. _Ann?_

The door closing behind him grabs her attention, and yes, that’s Ann, sitting in Leblanc, iced mocha in hand, chatting with Akira across the counter. She grins when she sees Goro, the picture of innocence and guileless intentions.

“Hey, Goro!” she chirps. “Look who I ran into!”

Goro turns briefly to Akira to get a read on what exactly is going on. He looks amused, which Goro can only hope has to do with the absurdity of the situation and not that Ann’s just shared a horribly unflattering story about Goro. Is she gossiping to Akira all about Goro’s decorative pillows?

Goro wonders who’s awkwardly laughing until he realizes that painful sound is coming out of his own mouth. He settles himself on his stool and tries to find the lesser evil to look at. Ann’s smugly delighted grin, like an inappropriate aunt finding condoms in her nephew’s gym bag, makes her the worse choice.

“Ann,” he says through gritted teeth. “What are you doing here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to meet your boyfriend!”

Here come the temple sweats. Goro hurries to rearrange his bangs. “Ann, we’re not exactly boyfriends. At least, well. We haven’t had that discussion yet.”

“We’re not?” Kurusu asks.

Goro’s thrown for a loop that makes him feel like his heart is being yo-yoed in his chest. “Uh—are we?”

“Do you want us to be?”

That’s just too many questions in a row without a single answer. “I—I suppose I would.”

Kurusu smiles. Even with Ann following this interaction like it’s a tennis match, it feels private, a soft little thing meant only for Goro to luxuriate in. “Then we are.”

Ann’s arm wraps around Goro’s shoulders. “Awww, you guys,” she coos. Goro tries to shake her off to no avail. “This is so adorable.”

“Ann,” Goro warns.

“No, it totally is,” says a new voice, and all of a sudden Sakura is there too, emerging from around the corner. His all-knowing slanted smile is somehow even worse than Ann’s. “Don’t mind me, lovebirds. Anybody want curry?”

“I do!” Ann says.

Sakura starts doling out plates, heaped with rice and fresh curry from the pot, and the conversation floats comfortably between bites. Akira and Ann seem to be getting along, Goro notes, pleased. Akira even answers all the questions Ann is poorly disguising as compatibility tests with Goro’s personality in ways that she obviously approves of, given the proud beams she keeps sending Goro whenever Akira turns around to refill coffee orders.

Twenty minutes in, Ann’s phone beeps in her pocket. “Shoot,” Ann mutters. “It’s work. They need a last-minute replacement for a photoshoot in Asakusa. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Goro says.

“Sorry, guys!” She jumps to her feet. “Thanks for the curry!”

“She’s great,” Akira says after she leaves, and a weight that Goro didn’t realize had been on his heart lifts. “I can see why you two are friends.”

“Oh?”

“You guys both have that limelight thing in common,” Akira says. “It must be nice to have someone who understands all that.”

“That’s certainly true,” Goro says. “We actually met at a photoshoot set.” He remembers the occasion perfectly. His momentum on television was starting to pick up and a magazine wanted to do a spread on him. It was a ridiculous spread, with questions aimed at him more about what his ideal date looked like than what his workday consisted of, and the magazine wanted even more ridiculous pictures of him inconspicuously “at work,” which meant meeting a bunch of photographers in a huge building and pretending to be dusting for fingerprints while their cameras clicked. It was a miracle that they didn’t stick him in a trench coat and gave him a magnifying glass.

Half an hour later, a different team of photographers showed up—Ann in tow—claiming they had booked the room and Goro and his photographers weren’t allowed to be there. The arguing lasted long enough that Goro had started getting a bit hungry, which was when Ann, who was decked out in a monstrosity of an outfit that Goro could only attribute to the mysteries of high fashion, approached him.

“You want to go get some lunch?” Ann had asked when the fighting escalated to getting higher-ups on the phone. “I think they might be awhile.”

“So we went out to lunch,” Goro tells Akira. “She told me that I didn’t look like the kind of person to do those types of photoshoots. Needless to say, I told her I wasn’t. I thought she was, but turns out she wasn’t either.”

“And you’ve been friends ever since.”

“Essentially. She’s been a support system for me for a long while now.”

Goro spoons together the last bite of his curry. When he looks up, Akira smiling at him. It looks like he’s biting the inside of his cheeks to keep it contained.

“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” he says.

“There is?”

Akira nods. “Why haven’t I seen this magazine spread of yours yet?”

Goro turns streetlight red. He also thanks his lucky stars that Ann isn’t here anymore, because she would undoubtedly be pulling the photos up on her phone right now.

More worrying is that if Goro looks at that fond smile on Akira’s face any longer, he himself might just share those photos.

He looks away, determined. The curry has left a lingering spiciness behind that’s making him feel braver than usual. He’s about to reach over the counter to grab Akira’s hand—maybe lean in for a kiss, when—

“Do you want to get out of here?” Akira asks him in a low whisper.

Wasn’t that supposed to be Goro’s line? He licks his lips. “The planetarium?” he offers.

“Actually, I was thinking... what about your place? If that’s not too presumptuous.”

Goro feels like he’s about to float out of his chair. “It’s not,” he assures. “Shall we go?”

\--

Sakura-san gives them a funny little smirk when Akira asks if he can take off early. “The planetarium,” Akira says by way of explanation, which might be more convincing if not for the way Goro can’t stand to make eye contact.

“Have fun,” Sakura calls out after them. 

During the train ride, Akira wraps his hand around Goro’s, just a loose hold of his fingers. It’s a simple gesture, but it makes Goro feel like a rocket, like all his emotions are about to torpedo out of him. He can’t make sense of it, none of it, not why Akira has such an effect on him, not why Goro can barely stop himself from vibrating in his presence.

In his head, he can practically see Ann rolling her eyes. Love’s not supposed to make sense, she would say. You can’t apply logic to everything, Goro, she would nag him. And she should know, considering the complete lack of logic in her current choice in paramour.

Akira’s hand gently squeezes his palm. He whispers in Goro’s direction, barely audible. Goro reads his lips as he says, smile shy, “I really like you.”

Goro’s heart helicopters in his chest for a giddy moment. He wonders if he even has to return the sentiment; surely it’s written all over his face.

It’s dark by the time the train comes to Goro’s stop. Akira keeps a hold on his hand as people push their way to their exit, and he keeps holding even after the crowd has dissolved. He keeps holding on the entire walk to Goro’s apartment, and it isn’t until Goro has to search through his pocket for his keys that he lets go.

“So this is you,” Akira says at the front door.

“Yes, at least until I’ll inevitably move again,” Goro says with a laugh. “I never tend to stay in one place very long. Although I must say, I would welcome a more permanent arrangement.”

He leads the way up the stairs and down the hall to his door, and it isn’t until he’s sliding the key in the lock that he takes a moment to fret about the state he left his place in. Are there any plates sitting about unwashed? Are his bedsheets wrinkled? 

Is Akira going to be _seeing_ his bedsheets?

“Well, here we are,” Goro says as he opens the door.

Akira takes off his shoes by the door and walks into the living room. He’s looking around the apartment, almost speculatively. Is it the lack of picture frames? The stain on the couch from eating leftovers in the living room that Goro can’t get out? But then he turns to Goro, calculating expression gone, like he’s confirmed something.

“Something the matter?” Goro asks.

Akira shakes his head. “Just…” He shakes his head again, cutting himself off. “This is a nice place.”

“I'm glad you like it,” Goro says. “I still haven’t completely gotten used to it yet.”

He looks around at the drab walls, the lack of decoration. The only living thing in the room is Ann’s cactus. He doesn’t have anything besides his TV to entertain with, and suddenly it feels like it might have been a bad idea to invite Akira back here.

Beverages. He can offer beverages. Goro turns to the fridge, motioning.

“Can I offer you something to drink?”

Akira’s hand slipping over his wrist turns his attention away from the kitchen. Akira’s smiling now, a little nervous, a little crooked.

“Yeah,” he says, stepping closer. “Later.”

He leans in and kisses Goro. It’s still not getting old, the thrill of Akira’s mouth, hot and unyielding, against Goro’s, and Goro is helpless not to wind his arms around Akira’s shoulders and pull him in close. Suddenly doing anything other than this seems like a silly idea—who needs beverages, anyway?—and Goro isn’t worrying about the bare walls or the amount of plant life he has in here anymore. He kisses Akira until he feels all the breath leave him and then some more after that, too. It isn’t until Akira’s starts trailing kisses down Goro’s jaw that Goro remembers to use his lungs again.

“This okay?” Akira’s murmuring onto his skin, hands gentle on Goro’s sides, as if waiting for permission.

Goro couldn’t imagine anything being more okay. He answers by tilting his head aside to give Akira more room—and anything else he might want—and whining an affirmative. Akira’s mouth is so warm on his neck, moving unpredictably, up his jugular and then down the slope of his collarbone, and it’s all Goro can do not to start trembling.

Giving Akira the go ahead changes him, taking away any apprehension he may have had and replacing it with a hunger Goro is also under the spell of. Akira’s hands start working fast on the buttons of Goro’s shirt when his mouth meets the barrier of Goro’s collar, and then, in a new voice that’s commanding and arousing and concerningly hot, Akira demands, “Take this off.”

It’s been a while since someone’s last ordered Goro around before. He finds he doesn’t mind so much when the orders are coming out of Akira’s mouth, where the words are slick and warm, rumbled against Goro’s ear. As a matter of fact, he finds it all too easy to let himself be led, to submit himself to the guidance of Akira’s strong hands.

He all but yanks his shirt off his shoulders, eager to comply, and Akira makes a noise of appreciation before his hands travel over the expanse of Goro’s bare chest. He touches Goro wonderingly, with a reverence that makes Goro shiver. Does he deserve this sort of dizzying, worshipful treatment?

“You’re amazing,” Akira says, like he can hear Goro’s thoughts. “Can I—?”

Goro doesn’t care; of course he fucking can. He’s nodding frantically before he even realizes that Akira’s hands are poised over his belt buckle.

“Please,” Goro says, which feels like the maximum amount of syllables he can work with right now.

He grabs Akira by fistfuls of his shirt after he’s stepped out of his pants, pulling him to the couch. Standing is getting harder and harder the wobblier his legs get, and Akira’s goal seems to be to liquify him. Akira comes willingly to the couch, tugging his own t-shirt off, too—thank god—before he tumbles on top of Goro. They've just started kissing again, Goro’s heartbeat wild in his ears, when the thumping from upstairs starts.

It gives Akira pause too. At first he looks up, bewildered, before he realizes what the source of the noise is.

“Wow,” he says. The lips he’s talking with are swollen from kissing and it’s making it very hard for Goro to focus. “That _is_ loud.”

The vindication Goro feels at that comment is almost enough to distract him from the task at hand. Or rather, the bare skin at hand. “I know,” Goro mutters. It sounds like they’re wearing cinder blocks as shoes up there.

“Want me to go up and tell them to quiet down?” Akira asks.

Actually, on the list of things Goro wants, at the top is knotting his fingers through Akira’s soft hair and dragging him down, closer, closer. He can never be close enough. He definitely doesn’t want Akira physically removing himself from where he’s pressed against Goro’s body, slotted between his legs, hips maddening against Goro’s, and going all the way upstairs to complain. Even if there is something of an allure to the idea of Akira telling off his noisy neighbors on his behalf.

“Stay,” Goro says—begs, possibly—and licks over the line of Akira’s jaw, feeling the skin heat up under his mouth. Akira groans and tilts his neck aside, exposing the long line of it, which seems to send the message that he’s not going anywhere.

Good. Goro’s not letting him go, not for a while. He loops his legs around Akira’s thighs, hitching them higher up his hips, desperate to feel more of him and less of the jeans separating them.

“Fuck,” Akira moans. It’s the first time Goro’s heard him cuss, and the sound is searingly hot. Goro did that. Goro’s reducing this sweet little barista boy to these filthy words. “Goro, let me—”

He shifts his hips, taking away delicious friction with him, but only to hasten to take off his pants. His frantic wriggling to get them off shakes the whole couch.

Akira takes his underwear off, too, in one fell swoop, freeing his cock and the curves of his ass and the lean line of his thighs, leaving Goro to openly stare. There’s a confidence with Akira here that he wasn’t expecting, a certain leadership quality that looks good on him.

It makes Goro want to unravel him. Or maybe be on the receiving end of an order. Goro hasn’t made up his mind yet, except for on the matter of sucking Akira off. He’s itching to do that.

It’s been ages since Goro’s done anything like this, but he lets his enthusiasm guide him along rather than his nerves. He reaches down and slides his hand over Akira’s cock. Akira’s movements screech to a stop with a cut-off moan, like Goro’s grabbed his metaphorical reins, so to speak.

“May I?”

Akira can’t seem to nod fast enough. A huff of laughter escapes him, like the very question is ridiculous. “You don’t have to ask,” he says.

That seems like a green light if Goro’s ever heard one. He kisses him again, helpless not to, and repositions them until he’s on top and Akira’s the one pressed, willing and waiting, into the cushions. His hair is a tangled mess and his glasses have fogged up a little and his chest is heaving, the sight of it all together so alluring that Goro has to stop just to appreciate it.

“Something wrong?” Akira asks.

Goro shakes his head. “Only insomuch that I’m not sure I’ll be able to control myself much longer.”

Akira’s hand curls around Goro’s hip. “I don’t want you to,” he says, and his cock, hard and at full-mast, seems to agree.

Goro’s not going to deny either of them any longer. His own dick is throbbing in his underwear, but Goro’s more inclined to focus on Akira right now, on the torn sounds of his breathing as Goro leans down to bite his chest, then kiss away the burn. Every hitch of a whine or shaky moan feels like praise, like some sort of addictive drug that’s whipping Goro’s arousal into a fever pitch. By the time he reaches Akira’s hipbones with his mouth, Akira’s trembling up into his touch, groaning without pause.

“Goro,” he breathes. “Please.”

The temptation of having the upper hand is irresistible for the moment. Goro lets his hands skate around Akira’s thighs, never quite touching their goal. His mouth is watering, and he’s desperate to put it to use, to please Akira and himself in the process, but first he wants to hear Akira beg for it.

When he talks, he leans in close enough for the heat of his words to brush over Akira’s cock. “Is there something you want?”

Akira doesn’t miss a beat. “You.”

The very word excites Goro. “Well,” he says with a satisfied little chuckle. “That’s not very specific, but it’ll do.”

He draws Akira into his mouth, reveling in the resulting shudder Goro feels pulse through his body. He lets intuition guide him, starting out soft and gradually letting himself go deeper, suck harder. He uses Akira’s noises as instructions, what’s working and what makes those sweet little whimpers come out unabated from Akira’s throat.

Akira’s hands pet over Goro’s hair, almost frantic, before his fingers slip between the strands, grip almost too tight. His knees are shaking on either side of Goro’s head. He groans when Goro curves his tongue around the head of his dick, loudly enough to be heard upstairs, so Goro does it again. And again.

“Goro,” Akira moans. The way his name sounds coming out of Akira’s mouth is almost filthy; how is anyone else ever going to be able to say Goro’s name again without him immediately thinking back to this moment? “Right there, Goro… god, you have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

How long? As long as Goro has? He pulls off from Akira’s dick to make sure. “Really?”

Akira looks down at him. He’s breathless and ruffled, pink in the cheeks and eyes heady. “Since the moment you walked into Leblanc,” he confesses. Goro’s heart jolts. “You in that tie—I didn’t stand a chance.”

The tie, huh? Goro can’t quite hide his pleased smirk as he takes Akira’s cock back into his mouth, somehow even hungrier for it than he was before. Knowing that Akira was watching him, thinking about him, wanting him just like Goro did, is dizzyingly invigorating. He redoubles his efforts until Akira’s words seem to have abandoned him entirely, leaving only moans behind.

The moans are doing a number on Goro. He’s so hard he’s aching, vibrating where he sits, the warmth of Akira’s cock in his mouth even more of a turn-on than he expected. He goes a little deeper, careful to watch his teeth, and Akira rewards him with a choked noise and a shallow thrust into Goro’s mouth.

“Oh god,” Akira breathes. “Do you—Goro, can I—in your mouth?”

Goro hums his assent. With Akira’s cock between Goro’s lips and those desperate whines in Akira’s mouth, Goro can’t imagine saying no to any of his requests right now. He only has one goal right now, one objective, and his brain has blinders on to anything else: he’s going to make Akira come.

It feels like a victory when Akira does, like Goro’s just cracked a case he’s been working on for months. Akira’s entire body goes through the tide of his orgasm, and Goro follows the motion of every shudder and shake until he’s licked him clean.

He almost assumes he’s left Akira braindead when he pulls off his softening cock to find Akira limp against the couch cushions, arm flung over his eyes, but then Akira’s sitting up with the urgency of a man with a goal of his own. He roughly cups the nape of Goro’s neck and reels him in until they’re kissing again, Akira’s mouth open under Goro’s, hot and demanding. He’s acting a bit like a man driven wild— _by Goro_ , he thinks smugly—and Goro can’t help but see his desperate need to touch Goro everywhere as a perfect report card.

“You’ve just,” Akira says between kisses, “got all the skills, huh?”

Goro would laugh, if he wasn’t so busy being kissed again. “I could say the same about you,” he says, and Akira responds by pulling him even closer.

Goro’s not sure how to articulate that one palm to the crotch and he may just cream himself. Before he can figure out a way, however, Akira’s rolling Goro around and pushing him back into the couch, hands greedy. Goro had let himself daydream about this sort of thing before, how Akira would act when unleashed in bed, but his imagination never could’ve prepared him for the real thing. The hunger in his movements. The tender care of his hands’ touch. The round, dark eyes, full of unbridled lust. Goro’s mind’s eye never could’ve hoped to get all those details right.

“God,” Akira murmurs into his skin, pressing uncoordinated kisses onto Goro’s torso. “There’s nothing I don’t want to do to your body, Goro.”

_Do it,_ Goro thinks. The edges of his coherent thoughts are starting to get fuzzy, replaced solely with the sensations of Akira’s mouth on him. “ _Yes_ ,” he moans. He usually wouldn’t let himself be this loud, but the off-chance that his neighbors will hear him and realize Goro isn’t the celibate spoilsport they assume him to be is too tempting to let pass by. Akira travels lower still, and when his mouth wraps around Goro’s cock and sucks, Goro’s volume climbs higher still, totally involuntarily this time.

He nearly reaches operatic levels of crying out when Akira continues going south and licks over his hole, firm and deliberate. No one’s ever done this for Goro before, and it all feels so new and intimate and intense, so much so that he has to demand his body to calm down. Swiveling his hips into the couch while sucking Akira off has left him balanced on the edge, with Akira aiming to push him right off.

“Okay?” Akira asks, voice gone into a rasp.

Does he really have to ask when Goro is a quivering mess of strangled noises? Goro pushes his hair away from his hot forehead. “Better than,” he says in a voice steadier than he feels. “You continue to impress, Akira.”

Akira licks again over his hole, satisfied. “Guess I better keep it up,” he says, and then nimble fingers are wrapping around Goro’s length too, stroking in time with the movements of Akira’s tongue, and Goro feels the pleasure start to mount. Akira takes to this like he does to everything: with a raw determination to do it well, even if it is clumsily. He’s giving Goro his all, mouth wet and insistent against his hole and tongue tracing the rim, and as far as Goro is concerned, he gets an A for effort alone.

His orgasm drenches him almost unexpectedly when it comes. Akira’s hands just know what to do, how to play with and tease each part of him, stripping away any and all inhibitions about holding his legs bent and open for a boy he’s been lusting over in a coffee shop. He just lets himself go, leaving Akira to stroke him through the aftershocks.

He comes back down to earth slowly, as if descending from an airplane, and when he opens his eyes, Akira’s smiling at him almost shyly from between Goro’s knees.

“Hi,” Goro says, unable to locate any other words in his brain.

It still somehow seems to be the right one. Akira’s smile grows. “Hi,” he says back. “Let me clean you up.”

And then he goes and does just that, grabbing a few tissues from Goro’s bathroom to wipe the come off Goro’s stomach. Even though he still feels horribly sticky, Goro can't help but grab Akira by the wrist and tug him back onto the couch, eager to be near him. Cuddle might be the word, but Goro won’t squabble with himself about it. Akira pulls Goro into his lap and starts pressing lazy kisses to his neck, so it looks like Akira isn’t shy of cuddling either.

The thought that Goro would be happy to never move from this position crosses his mind, if only because of the nice thing Akira keeps doing with his hands in Goro’s hair.

“Can you stay?” Goro asks, pressing into the head massage.

“I don’t have class until noon,” Akira tells him. He pauses, and when he speaks again, his smile is audible. “But I don’t have my pajamas with me.”

Goro’s not complaining. He clears his throat. “I’ll forego mine as well, if it would help,” he offers.

“Sold,” Akira says.

\--

“I like him a lot,” Ann tells him over the phone the next day.

“I’m glad you do,” Goro says as he one-handedly prepares the coffee. I like him too, he thinks, practically giddy, but that should be self-evident by the fact that Akira’s in the shower right now while Goro gets breakfast ready for them both. “By the way. What did you two talk about before I got there?”

“Your deepest, darkest secrets, of course.”

“Ann.”

“Oh, relax! We just chatted. I asked what his intentions with you were.”

“You did not.” Goro waits for the rush of embarrassment to pass. Then he asks, “What did he say?”

Ann giggles. “That he really likes you.”

I like him too, Goro thinks again. He feels fourteen again, all but euphoric with all these feelings and the joy of sharing them, except he never did anything quite like this at fourteen. He slots the coffee filter into place mostly on autopilot, his brain wandering off into daydream territory.

It turns into quite a long journey, because next thing he knows, Ann’s repeating his name over and over through the phone.

Memories of last night fly away like a skittered bird. “Pardon?” he says. “Sorry. I was—distracted by the coffee machine.”

“Uh huh,” Ann says, voice ripe with suspicion. “Sure you were. Is it coffee for two, by any chance?”

Goro’s eyes flick toward the bathroom door, where the muffled sound of the shower spray is still to be heard. If she knew how Goro woke up today—namely, with a naked boy wrapped around his back, whispering in his ear, hand snaked around to his front to slowly jerk Goro off—then she wouldn’t even have to ask.

“Maybe,” he says.

She gasps. “Goro! You go, you hot little detective!”

There come those silly butterflies again, fluttering all through his insides. That’s right. A boy who Goro likes happens to like him too, and he _spent the night_. “So you really like him?”

“Yes!” Ann says. “And you know what, he looks kind of familiar to me, but I can’t quite place him.” She stops to think, then cries out as inspiration strikes. “Ooh! Did he used to work at that crêpe place by the station?”

“The… crêpe place?” The shower turns off in the bathroom. “Ann, I have to go.”

“Oooh, say hi to your boyfriend for me!”

He hangs up before the teasing can continue, even if hearing Ann say the word _boyfriend_ makes him feel like it’s his birthday and his room is full of presents. Which it is, in a way, and one of those presents comes walking out right now with a towel around his waist and a happy smile on his face.

“Hey,” Akira says, sliding up to where Goro’s spooning sugar into their cups. He presses a small kiss next to Goro’s ear. “I smell coffee.”

“I can’t promise it’ll be as good as Leblanc’s, but...”

“I can always teach you,” Akira offers, lips finding their way back to Goro’s jaw, almost like he can’t quite help himself. Maybe they don’t even need the coffee. Maybe they don’t need breakfast, or food, or anything but to go back to bed for another few hours. All Goro would have to do is give that towel one sly pull, and—

“I have toast almost ready as well,” Goro says, remembering what he was working on just a moment ago before Akira’s shirtless chest diverted his attention. “And fruit, if you’d like some.”

“Sounds good,” Akira says. He presses one last kiss to Goro’s neck before sliding away and rounding the counter to take a seat.

The removal of Akira’s chest from touching distance makes preparing the rest of breakfast much easier, and he butters the toast and cuts up a few pieces of fruit for them with only a few glances in Akira’s direction, who seems wholly invested in Goro’s countertop. It isn’t until Goro’s bringing the plates over that he realizes what Akira’s staring at: Joker’s note, still unanswered.

“Your neighbor,” Akira says.

“Yes, my insufferable neighbor,” Goro sighs. He puts Akira’s plate right on top of the note so it no longer has to be a topic of discussion, but Akira isn’t quite done yet, apparently.

“Is he really so bad?” he asks. “Maybe you two just got off on the wrong foot, you know.”

Goro resists the urge to roll his eyes. More like the wrong _feet_ , which continue to do wrong by Goro every day by stomping around carelessly above him. He doesn’t want to talk about Joker; he doesn’t even want to think about those idiots upstairs. It’s not like Goro needs to make nice with everyone he meets.

“Perhaps,” he says, as diplomatically as possible. “But I don’t have much interest in mending that particular relationship. And with any luck, I’ll be moving out soon.”

“Right. Makes sense,” Akira says, but the look on his face—nearly troubled—makes it clear that he disagrees. It’s possible that Akira expected Goro to be more pure of heart, or puppy-like in all matters of forgiveness, and this new realization that Goro is really just a cold-hearted loner isn’t sitting well with him.

When he looks at Goro again, though, he’s shaken off whatever disappointment he was wallowing in. He smiles at Goro around his coffee cup.

“It’s not bad,” he says, motioning to the cup. “You’re a natural.”

Goro laughs. “Am I? Perhaps my true calling lies with coffee making.”

One of Akira’s hands sneaks onto Goro’s knee, and when Goro catches his gaze, there’s a hunger there that has nothing to do with breakfast. He smiles, one of those almost smirks that does funny things to Goro’s nervous system.

“I think I know where your calling lies,” he says.

Goro chuckles. “I highly doubt that what you’re thinking of is much of a _calling_.”

“Mm. I’ll be the judge of that.” He leans in to kiss up Goro’s jaw, stopping to nibble his ear. He really is insatiable in the mornings. Goro shudders. “When do you have to leave today?”

Goro checks the clock on the wall. “I have class at eleven,” he says. But who even needs class when he has such an eager man gnawing on his neck? “I’ll need to get ready soon, actually.”

Akira’s noise of disapproval vibrates through Goro’s clavicle. “Come to Leblanc today for dinner?” he suggests, as if Goro wasn’t already planning on it. “I can show you the attic where I used to live.” He stops to briefly press an open-mouthed kiss on Goro’s skin. “The futon should still be there.”

The futon—yet another surface to defile against and be defiled on. Goro shudders again.

“You certainly are persuasive,” Goro admits. “But I’ll have to see how busy work is today. I’m expected at the police— _ah_ —station this afternoon.”

Akira lifts his head from where he’s been biting down on all of Goro’s most sensitive spots—how did he find them all already so fast?—and takes another sip of coffee. “I’ll text you,” he says. 

Goro hides his quiet happiness in his coffee cup. He’s never had all that many people he wanted to text before, let alone have text him. The sheer novelty of that changing and having a boyfriend—a _boyfriend_ —who wants to keep in touch with him throughout the day hasn’t worn off yet.

Akira manages to keep his hands to himself as they finish up breakfast—Goro too, although it does cross his mind a few times that a pre-class blowjob would certainly energize him better than some toast and coffee—and while Goro’s putting dishes away, Akira gets dressed. Seeing him in yesterday’s clothes does funny things to Goro’s heart. With them comes the dreamy memory of hurrying to tear them off Akira.

“Let me know about dinner,” Akira says before he kisses Goro goodbye.

Goro’s never been kissed goodbye before in his life. It tingles through him long after he’s watched Akira leave, marinating in its implications. This is—really something. Akira’s his boyfriend. Goro has a boyfriend.

The realization gives him a high that not even Joker’s note, still on the table and catching Goro’s eye like a rotting sandwich, could diminish. He grabs his piece of paper and prepares his reply:

_I just happen to admire crows and their intelligence. They’re incredibly smart and interesting creatures._

_As much as you might like to frighten me out of the entire building, I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than a scarecrow._

_Crow_

\--

Ann’s extremely cheerful disposition the next time Goro sees her makes it painfully obvious that her date at the museum went well.

So well, in fact, that she’s almost distracted from digging into the details of Goro’s love life.

Almost.

“—and then we went up to the third floor and he told me the stories behind all his favorite paintings,” Ann says as she leafs through hangers. She’s gone through this rack about three times already, too distracted by her own story to pay attention to shopping. “He’s really passionate about that stuff. He’s… sweet.” She lets go of a little laugh. “And weird. I don’t think he was trying to offend me that day we were at his place.”

“I’ve come to the same conclusion,” Goro grudgingly agrees. “I would say he may just be extremely socially inept.”

“Don’t be mean, Goro!”

Goro thinks about Kitagawa’s obsession with nude paintings and how comfortable he is discussing them with strangers. He’s definitely not being mean. He clears his throat. “Are you seeing him again?”

Ann messes slowly with a pigtail. “He invited me to a party at his place this weekend.”

Goro freezes.

“No,” he groans. “Not a party.”

It’s going to be so loud. And raucous. And disruptive. And Goro can already imagine how it’ll go deep into the night, haunting him. He simply cannot allow Ann to become one of his tormentors.

Ann picks up a shirt, fiddling with the fabric. It’s not her color, but Goro’s feeling petty, so he doesn’t speak up against that sartorial atrocity. “You should come,” Ann says.

“ _What?_ ”

“Yusuke told me I can bring friends,” Ann says tentatively.

Of course. The more people, the more noise to taunt Goro with. “The more the merrier, I suppose.”

Ann smacks him in the arm. “No, silly, you should come!”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Then you can finally confront this Joker guy and talk things out. Like adults!”

Goro would normally agree, but something about Joker and this entire feud doesn’t make him want to act like an adult. Maybe because all this note passing makes him feel like an angry child with a grudge, not to mention that the last few times he went upstairs to reason with those loons weren’t so effective. The chance that Joker is any more level-headed than either of his roommates seems unlikely.

Goro sighs. “I might be busy,” he says.

Ann narrows her eyes. “I didn’t even tell you what time the party is yet.”

“I’m busy a lot lately,” Goro says hotly. For good measure, he adds, “I have a boyfriend. He takes up time.”

“Oh my god,” Ann says through an eye roll. “Fine. It’s Saturday night, by the way. You better give me a good reason if you don’t plan on coming.”

\--

“You’re free on Saturday night, aren’t you?” Goro asks, desperate, at Leblanc the next day. He sets his hands eagerly on the table. “Let’s do something together.”

Akira looks up from the coffee siphon he’s cleaning. “This Saturday?”

“Yes. I thought we could see a movie, or perhaps go to a quiet little club I know together. Or we could always go to your place and… have an early night.”

He makes sure to make it clear by his tone of voice just what _an early night_ would entail. Not a bad selection of offers, if Goro does say so himself.

“Sorry.” Akira winces. “I have plans already.”

Goro’s heart drops. “Oh?”

“Yeah. My friends and I made plans to hang out.” He scrubs the back of his neck. “How about Friday night?”

Goro sighs. To think he had already been prematurely envisioning a night out with Akira rather than wallowing in the pounding noise of his inconsiderate neighbors. “That’s fine,” he says. He’ll just have to think of another excuse to cobble together for Ann to get out of that infernal party. “Friday night works, provided you’re willing to wait until I’m done at the TV station.”

“Or I could come to the station,” Akira offers. He smiles. “I’d like to see you at work, actually.”

“Really?” Goro grimaces. “I’m not sure you’d enjoy yourself. I have to be a… certain type of person for the cameras, you know.” At Akira’s questioning look, he elaborates. “My TV image is just a bit more controlled than you might be used to.”

“I know,” Akira says. Simply, like it’s that easy. Akira goes back to wiping down the equipment. “I’ve seen you on TV before, you know.”

“Right, yes. You did say you had seen a few of my interviews.”

“Yeah.” Akira’s smile grows. “So I can come?”

“I suppose you can.”

Goro watches as Akira cleans the counter and gathers dishes together, wondering all the while if it really _is_ that easy. He always used to think that dating would be too much of a hassle because of all his various faces, some sculpted for the fans, some for the executives, some for work, but Akira doesn’t seem the least bit confused or even bothered. Maybe he wouldn’t even mind the angry, vindictive person Goro becomes when he interacts with Joker and wears the face of Crow.

“Say,” Goro says. “Do you believe you only have one true face?”

Akira stops cleaning for a long moment, so long that Goro checks to see if he’s listening. “Why do you ask?”

“Just a thought,” Goro says, resting his chin against his fist. “I admit that I have to maintain many. I take it you can’t relate?”

Akira pauses for another long moment before answering. “I think I can. I think we all can.” His hand messes with the hair at the nape of his neck. “I’m different here than I am at home.” His mouth twists into a smile. “Or how I am with you.”

The relief Goro feels at not being the only one to juggle different masks of himself is slightly overshadowed by the implications of Akira’s words. Akira’s different with him than anyone else. There’s a special version of Akira that exists just for him, just because of him.

“And how would that be?” Goro can’t help but ask.

Akira thinks on it. “Distracted,” is what he comes up with.

“Oh? Why’s that?”

Akira puts the dish rag in his hand aside, leaning across the counter until he’s nearly nose to nose with Goro. From this close, Goro can smell his aftershave and see every smudge on his glasses, and suddenly _distracting_ seems like a very apt word indeed.

“You’re the detective,” Akira whispers. “I’ll give you a clue.”

He leans in, letting their lips brush together. The touch is teasingly light, but Goro has no intention of being teased. He grabs Akira by the apron and pulls him in close, letting himself be thoroughly distracted.

\--

_Crow,_

_The scarecrow bit was just a joke. I like the code name. I like having you around the building too. It keeps us on our toes._

_What makes crows so interesting to you?_

_Joker_

\--

_Joker,_

_They keep grudges._

_Crow_

\--

By the end of the workday on Saturday, Goro’s in no mood for a party. Much less a party full of people he either doesn’t know, actively dislikes, or are flirting with his best friend (assuming that running after someone brandishing a paintbrush is _flirting_ ). But considering that the alternative is sitting one floor below in his own apartment, silently fuming and transforming into a bomb of his own anger as he listens to line dances stomp through the ceiling, Goro has to admit that being in attendance and getting to confront the man behind the _Joker_ facade might be a better way to spend his time.

The _best_ way to spend his time would be with Akira, christening Leblanc’s attic again on the high school relic that is his dusty old futon like they did the other day, just as promised. Or like yesterday, when Akira came to the TV station and watched Goro’s interview from the wings, the presence of his silent support something Goro never knew he needed but now feels he will badly crave from here on out.

Not that either of those are options for today. Today, Goro’s neighbors have his attention. Ann even comes to his door an hour prior to the party to dragoon him into going.

“All right,” Goro says, long-suffering, like he’s doing her a favor. “But I don’t intend to stay long.”

She loops her arm through Goro’s. “Maybe you’ll even have fun,” she says. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Goro looks down at his clothes, fresh from work. Perhaps his blazer isn’t appropriate for a carefree party, but it does allow him a certain degree of distance from all the other partygoers. Goro is fairly certain no one will try to chat up somebody in a blazer.

“I’m not going to _impress_ anyone,” he says coolly. Really, this is more business than leisure. If anything, he should be aiming to intimidate.

Kitagawa is the one to open the door to greet them. He lights up at the sight of Ann, which Goro begrudgingly will admit is the only acceptable way for any potential love interest of Ann’s to regard her: with delighted awe. For once, he isn’t covered in flecks of paint.

“Hey!” Ann says. “I brought Goro, since you said I could bring friends.”

“Thank you for allowing me to come,” Goro says smoothly, all the while hoping his intended subtext of _proper etiquette would’ve meant sending an invite to your neighbor rather than forcing him to be someone’s plus one, you ingrates_ comes across.

It obviously doesn’t. “Please come in,” Kitagawa says eagerly, stepping aside.

The party is even busier than Goro expected, already loud and bustling. The last one certainly sounded rambunctious from Goro’s ceiling, but to think that all these people had been crammed into this tiny apartment, voluntarily, boggles the mind. Any trace of Kitagawa’s easels have been removed; as a matter of fact, even the couches have been shoved aside to make room. Finding Joker among the crowd won’t be an easy feat.

“Which one do you think is Joker?” Goro asks Ann as Kitagawa leads them to the kitchen for snacks and drinks. They pass by plenty of candidates. Is Joker tall, or is he short? Does he have long hair, or is he short and groomed?

“Dunno,” Ann says. She tugs on Kitagawa’s sleeve. “Hey, is your other roommate here tonight?”

“Somewhere, yes,” Kitagawa says. He guides them to a kitchen that’s been transformed into a snack buffet: bowls of chips, candy, and pretzels await next to cans of beer and soda. “Please, help yourselves.”

“So,” Goro says as Ann starts sampling sweets. “What’s tonight’s happy occasion?”

“It’s the weekend,” someone says from behind Goro. When he turns around, he sees Kitagawa’s roommate—the loud blond boy who Goro assumes was raised by feral wolves—squeeze his way over to the kitchen. He reaches into the pretzel bowl to grab a handful. “Do we need a better _occasion_ , neighbor?”

“Akechi,” Goro says through an exhale. “My name is Goro Akechi.”

The guy shrugs, grin wide. “I know,” he says. “I’m Sakamoto, by the way. You enjoyin’ the party? I guess since you’re here, you can’t actually go complainin’ about the noise this time, right?”

“Ryuji,” Kitagawa cuts in.

Ah. So they all talk about his notes up here, then. Do they laugh and judge? Are they entertained by Goro’s perfectly reasonable requests for silence at an ungodly hour?

“That’s all right,” Goro says. He turns to Sakamoto and lets a beguiling smile preface his words. “I can of course complain about the noise, if you’d like. Maybe to the building manager?”

Sakamoto goes satisfyingly red around the earlobes. He turns to Yusuke and mumbles, “Who invited him again?”

It’s audible enough for Goro to hear it. He shoots Ann a sidelong look, who seems to realize that the end of his fuse is crackling. “Hey!” she says loudly. “Is there a bathroom here I could use?”

“Yeah. I’ll show ya,” Sakamoto offers. “And, uh. Just ignore the cat tree in the shower. We had to make some room out here for the party.”

He guides her down the hallway, leaving Goro alone with Kitagawa, who’s busy pouring himself a drink. From the way he’s staring at his glass, Goro has a feeling he cares less about the flavor and more about the artistic colors he’s mixing together.

He may be a bit odd, but Goro can’t fault him for a bit of passion. Okay, a lot of passion. As long as he’s using that passion in the right places. The conversation Ann had with Akira at Leblanc comes to mind.

“So,” Goro says slowly. “Kitagawa-kun. Can we speak for a moment?”

Kitagawa looks up from his glass. “Yes,” he says. He blinks as if shoving brushstrokes aside from under his eyelids and puts his drink down. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you, actually.”

“Oh?”

“I’d like to personally thank you for your advice with Ann. It worked out tremendously.”

Ideal that Kitagawa ended up in the very topic Goro was going to expertly corner him into. “It worked out, you say?” he asks. “I hope you won’t take offense if I ask what exactly your intentions are at this point, Kitagawa-kun.”

“My intentions?”

“With Ann.”

Kitagawa sighs and turns his gaze longingly to the hallway Ann disappeared into. “To marvel, and live in wonder,” he says. “I intend to treasure every second she grants me her presence. My art will no doubt flourish.”

“Hm,” Goro says. “The art is your goal, then?”

“She is fascinating,” Kitagawa continues, wondrous, as if he hasn’t heard Goro at all. “I’ve asked her to go to dinner with me this week. I’m already saving up. I’ll have to forego buying paint supplies for a while, but…”

Skip out on paint in order to splurge on dinner (or in Ann’s case, dessert). Goro has to admit, this certainly sounds promising. And his detective’s intuition is telling him Kitagawa isn’t here to play hacky sack with Ann’s heart. He might not know entirely what it is he’s doing, but Goro’s fairly certain he’s due to figure it out eventually.

“Tell you what,” Goro says. He’s feeling benevolent. “I’ll cover your dinner, under the circumstance that you treat Ann properly during your date.”

Kitagawa looks at him. “Of course,” he says, sounding almost offended. He doesn’t get hung up over the word _date_ , though, which is really what Goro was looking for. Just in case Ann wants it to be. The last thing Goro would want then is for Kitagawa to carry around the illusion that their get-together is just a merry little art appreciation squad. “What exactly are you expecting of me?”

“Oh, nothing sinister. Please don’t take it the wrong way,” Goro says. “I’m just looking out for Ann’s well-being.”

Kitagawa examines him carefully. Then, unexpectedly, he cracks a small smile.

“I’m no longer surprised that my roommate spoke so well of you,” he murmurs. “Your loyalty to Ann is admirable.”

“Your—your roommate?”

“The one you’ve been sending notes to.”

Goro feels a bit like a boomerang, thrown for a loop and still waiting to return to his more composed self. He clears his throat. “Joker—your roommate—is speaking well of me?” Because he himself has been cursing Joker to an early grave.

“Yes. I believe he appreciates your intelligence. And your obstinance.”

Goro is at a loss for words. He never once thought about Joker’s good qualities, let alone chatted about them with other people. Joker is obnoxious and unrelenting and arrogant and smug and—apparently the type of person to look for the good in others. Goro doesn’t even know how to comprehend this kind of behavior.

Kitagawa picks his glass up again, but only absently examines the mess of colors within this time. He seems completely oblivious of Goro’s surprise. Maybe Goro was wrong about Joker—not completely, of course. The man is still a juvenile little imp. But maybe he’s not quite as ill-intentioned as Goro had assumed. It could be that his brain is just wired to see malice and competition everywhere, when in reality Joker could be—

Suddenly someone is tugging urgently at his sleeve, and when Goro turns to look, Ann is there, eyes wide. In her free hand she’s clutching a picture frame.

“Goro,” she says, her hand tight in his sleeve. “I know now why Akira looked familiar to me. Look!”

She pushes the frame into his hands. It’s a photograph of Sakamoto, Kitagawa, and—Akira. They’re all standing together, smiles on their faces, in front of a roller coaster.

“I saw this hanging on the wall when I was here last time, but I didn’t totally remember it,” Ann says. “If Akira knows his roommates, he might know who Joker is too!”

Goro’s hands tighten on the corner of the frame. The words Ann is saying make sense, but there’s a much more disturbing conclusion that Goro is now considering too. He abruptly feels very ill.

“Kitagawa-kun,” Goro calls. His voice is steadier than he feels. He feels like he’s on the precipice of knowing some dreadful truth. “Who is this in the photo with you?”

Kitagawa looks away from his bubbly glass of art. “My roommate,” he says.

Goro’s heart lurches. “No,” he says, pointing specifically at Akira. At that undeniably Akira-shaped person smiling at him innocuously from the photograph. “Him.”

Kitagawa nods. “Yes, him. He’s my roommate.”

“What’s his name?” Ann asks.

“Akira Kurusu. Why? Do you know him?”

Goro’s world tilts dangerously for a second. No, no—it couldn’t be. If it could, that would mean that not only is Joker the horrible, mean-spirited person Goro has known him to be, but _Akira_ is too, and Akira is supposed to be the kind barista who serves Goro nice coffee and kisses him until he’s dizzy and takes him away from all the horribleness of his inconsiderate neighbors. He isn’t supposed to be one of the inconsiderate neighbors himself.

Goro grinds his teeth together and ignores Kitagawa’s question. “Is he here?” he asks.

“He went to bring more beverages, but I assume he’ll be back soon.” Kitagawa looks around. He inclines his head toward the front door. “Ah, there he is.”

Goro turns to look. There’s Akira, slipping his shoes off as he nudges the door shut behind himself, a case of beer in one hand and soda in the other. That dear face Goro has grown so fond of is suddenly making him homicidally angry. 

Goro doesn’t wait for Akira to notice him. He shoves his way through the party, deaf to Ann calling his name behind him; he only has one goal, and that goal is to figure out exactly how long he's been played as a fool. He sidesteps his way through all the dancing, happy idiots who are in his way until he lands right in front of Akira. 

“Goro,” Akira says, blinking hard. He looks dumbfounded, and then immediately afterward, guilty. That expression of guilt storms in Goro’s stomach.

“Good evening, Akira,” Goro says. “Or would you rather I call you Joker?”

The guilt magnifies tenfold. Goro could smack it right off his face.

“Goro,” he says again, pleadingly this time. “I’m sorry.”

The apology only makes Goro feel worse. “So you knew?” he asks. “All along?”

“No. Not all along.” Akira grimaces. “Later. I put two and two together after you mentioned your roommates to me.”

“I see.” Even to his own ears, Goro’s voice sounds like it’s covered in ice as it slips out of his mouth, an igloo of words. “And after that, you decided it would be best to keep that secret from me, because? You thought it would be funny?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It amused you to torment me?”

“No.”

“Then _why_?” Goro snaps.

Akira doesn’t seem to have an answer. His silence is unnerving surrounded by the thumping music and annoying laughter of people having more fun than Goro. _Say something_ , Goro wants to snarl, but maybe Goro was right and he’s already guessed the explanation. Akira thought it would be funny.

Someone’s elbow jostles Goro in the spine as they dance behind him, and the movement snaps Goro out of his growing rage and into action. He just wants to get out of here. He needs to be looking at something other than Akira’s silent face, the remorseful twist to his mouth, the glint of his glasses over his blank eyes. Goro turns and runs. He pushes past anybody in the way until he’s hurtling himself through the door and down the stairs, tumbling almost too fast to keep from tripping, overwhelmingly grateful that his home, his refuge, is just one floor away. He can hear footsteps thundering after him, but they only encourage him to run faster until he’s safe behind his own door.

When he reaches it, he nearly slams the door on Ann, who’s hot on his trail.

“Woah!” she cries. “Goro, are you okay?”

Goro yanks her inside and shuts the door. He’s not okay, but he imagines she can see that just fine from the murderous complexion of his face. He’s beyond angry; he’s livid, volcanic, explosive. The thought of having to explain it to Ann and say the story out loud is only making it worse.

“Did you hear?” he asks.

“No, but. I think I can connect the dots.” She sounds more dismayed than mad, which is infuriating. She should really be leading the troops alongside Goro, preparing for battle. She sighs. “Oh, Goro.”

She puts her hand on his back, but he flinches away from the pity. Not that it deters her. She touches his arm next, and Goro can see her mouth opening to dispense more pity in his peripherals, but before she can, a firm knock on the door spooks him into jolting.

Ann goes for the door, but Goro knows perfectly well that whatever’s on the other side is only going to turn his fury nuclear. “Don’t,” he hisses.

She looks through the peephole instead. “It’s Yusuke,” she whispers.

Goro shakes his head. No, no, no one from upstairs until he can breathe evenly again.

Ann opens the door anyway, the traitor. Her crush has turned her blind—who knows how Kitagawa was involved in this mighty scam? Perhaps his woeful painter act was just a facade and Kitagawa lured her into this web of lies too.

It seems unreasonable, but Goro’s mind is scattering to unreasonable places right now. He looks over at the door and finds that Kitagawa isn’t even looking at him, just talking to Ann in hushed tones.

“—not really a good idea,“ he can hear Ann saying to him, and Yusuke leans in closer and whispers some more.

Goro can’t figure out if it’s rude or considerate of them to keep their conversation inaudible. He can’t figure out anything; the noise in his head has gone white and violent, like a too-loud radio on static. How could he not have figured this all out? He’s a _detective_ , one who prides himself on his deductive capabilities. He never gives in to these flurries of childish emotions, and the _one_ time he does—

He’s sitting on his couch, trembling with a dangerous cocktail of feelings, before he can even register doing so. Ann is hovering over him a moment later, eyes worried.

“Where’s Kitagawa?” he asks.

“He left,” Ann says, taking a seat next to him. “He wanted to talk to you, but—I told him now isn’t a great time.”

Goro scoffs. Not a great time? He begs to differ. Now would be the perfect time for Goro to tell Kitagawa exactly what he thinks of him and his disgusting little roommates.

“Are you okay?” Ann asks hesitantly.

“What do you think?” he bites out, perhaps too sharply. He regrets it a moment later and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Ann says. Her hand finds his back once more, gently rubbing, and Goro would shake her off again if it didn’t feel so damn nice. “How can I help?”

Would it be fair to ask for Ann’s help poisoning them? To drag her down to that level of illegality might be pushing the boundaries of their friendship, but putting butter on every piece of their furniture just doesn’t seem like enough anymore.

He puts his head in his hands and leans forward between his knees, focusing in on nothing but the soothing motions of Ann’s hand between his shoulders. Every time he tries to think about what’s going to happen next, whether it be one hour from now or one week, his head starts throbbing. He’ll have to plead his case to Shido about moving again. He doesn’t even want to imagine bumping into Akira by the mailboxes.

“I don’t know,” Goro says, voice brittle. He has no idea how to make himself feel better, let alone how to include other people in the process.

“Should I stay?” Ann offers. “I could spend the night if you want.”

“No, it’s—” It’s not fine. Goro clears his throat. “I’ll be all right on my own.”

He has no idea if that’s the truth. He’s been on his own for years in all types of crises and problems, but the thought of being alone to muddle through this one is making him feel sick. He thinks about just what he might do left to his own devices with all this rage churning inside of him and feels like tonight might never end if he squats in the emotional marsh of his own head like this.

“I’ll go make some tea,” Ann declares, getting to her feet. Goro distantly listens to her putter about the kitchen cabinets looking for teabags, grateful that she didn’t suggest coffee or anything else that would remind him of Leblanc.

He’s still bitter throughout his entire first cup, but after the second, he’s become tired: of his own tsunami of emotions, of Ann fussing over him, of how much of a joke life is for him and how stupid he was for thinking Akira was some grand exception. Of course he isn’t. At worst, he just wanted Goro around for a few laughs, and at best, he didn’t care about Goro enough to tell him the truth. Either option leaves Goro with a hollow pit in his stomach that no amount of hot tea can placate.

“I’ll be fine,” Goro says when Ann tries to pour him a third cup. “Not right now, but later. I’ll be fine later once I’ve—” Processed. Moved on. Found a path to sweet revenge. “Once some time passes.”

He drinks the third cup anyway, but soon feels like all that liquid was a mistake when his eyes start feeling moist. He rubs at them with the heels of his hands, a motion Ann thankfully interprets as his exhaustion.

“Do you want to get some sleep?” she asks.

“Yes,” Goro says, fighting to sound composed. “I do want to sleep.”

Except when he does curl into bed, staring at the darkness of his ceiling, he doesn’t sleep. His mind churns and churns and churns, looking back and picking through the details of his and Akira’s relationship, their conversations, their interactions, looking for warning signs and red flags.

The sounds of the party drift downstairs through the ceiling. Goro listens to the music and the laughter and the dancing feet without wanting to.

\--

Ann stops by again the next day without notice. Goro warily checks his peephole before he lets her in, which he realizes might’ve been a mistake when he sees her arms laden with romantic movies and sweet snacks.

“Comfort food!” she says with a cheery smile, clearly trying to lead by example. She obviously doesn’t know that Goro spent the night researching his poison plans, and his morning writing strongly-worded emails to the building management about the danger his neighbors pose to the complex. “And cheesy movies! Exactly what you need!”

To Goro’s horror, she’s also holding a large knit blanket that he suspects she’s planning to swaddle him with. Presumably while gorging himself on sugar and watching fictional people enjoy more successful love lives than himself.

“No. No. And no.” Goro crosses his arms over his chest. “I want to watch murder documentaries.”

“Aw, come on!”

“Let me rephrase that: I will be watching murder documentaries. You can stay if you like.”

Ann pouts, but doesn’t argue as she starts unloading. She slips snacks out of her purse too until Goro’s kitchen counter looks like a candy shop. Except for—

“What’s that in your hand?” Goro asks.

“Huh?” Ann lifts the hand in question. A small folded piece of paper is between her fingers. “Oh. Um, well. I found it on the door.” She tentatively extends it to Goro. “I didn’t know if you’d want to know it was there.”

Goro stares at it, and stares at it, willing it to burst into flame, and finally snatches it up and unfolds it.

_Goro,_

_I’m so sorry about everything that happened at the party. I want you to know that_

Goro crumples the paper up in his fist before he can finish reading. He’s vaguely aware of the fact that he might not be in the right state of mind to finish it right now, not when the thin wire connected to the dynamite of his mind is currently sizzling with red hot emotion.

Ann is watching him with wide, expectant eyes, though. “What does it say?”

Goro clears his throat. “I haven’t read all of it.”

“Why not?!” She steps closer. “Do you want me to?”

“No!” Goro can’t even explain how direly he does not want that. If it were up to him, he would surgically remove the portion of Ann’s brain cells that even remember Goro telling her about Akira. “Fine.”

He uncrumples the note.

that I never wanted to upset you or lie to you. I had no idea who you were when we started sending those notes, and after I found out, I just couldn’t figure out a way to tell you. I was afraid that you hated Joker too much to still like Akira. I know now that keeping it a secret wasn’t a good idea though.

I don’t expect you to forgive me right away. But I hope you do eventually because I like you a lot, both Goro Akechi and Crow.

Akira

“Well?” Ann prompts.

Goro lowers the note. “He’s sorry and never meant to hurt me,” he says in a voice that comes out much more detached than how he feels. “Apparently he was too afraid to tell me the truth.” He stares at the note again, at the familiar handwriting that was, for so long, the hallmark of Joker, and now has Akira’s name signed to it. He gives in to the savage impulse to crumple it back up again. “Hah. How pathetic.”

“Goro,” Ann starts saying.

“Let’s not talk about him,” he decides. He just wants to get lost in the details of a brutal murder trial and put all this behind him. “Let’s watch something.”

“Is there no way you can forgive him?” Ann nudges gently. “What if he really is sorry?”

“You’re not serious.”

“I just think you’d be denying yourself happiness if you just threw this all away! What if—”

“ _Denying myself happiness?_ ” He scoffs loudly. “You honestly think there’s even still a shred of happiness to be gained from someone so treacherous and manipulative? Someone who tormented me as a neighbor while simultaneously pretending to be a sympathetic boyfriend?”

He doesn’t even notice how worked up he’s gotten until he realizes he’s crushed one of Ann’s bags of candy in his fist. He sets it down before he pulverizes anything.

Ann draws her lip into her mouth. “I just think you might not know the whole story,” she says. “Don't you at least owe it to—”

“I don’t owe him anything,” Goro sneers.

“— _yourself_ to figure it out?”

He feels a little bit like he’s being badgered into listening to Akira speak, which is a task that not only feels monumentally challenging, but also one Goro simply doesn’t want to do. He doesn’t want to give Akira the opportunity to wring excuses about until he begs Goro to forgive him. And he doesn’t want to put his own heart through a juicer in the process.

He just wants to put this all behind him.

“I talked to Yusuke,” Ann says. Her voice has gone very gentle, like talking to an easily spooked deer. Goro doesn’t appreciate it. “He says that Akira felt really bad after you left.”

What a trustworthy testimonial. “And how do you know Kitagawa isn’t covering up for his little friend?” 

“What would even be the point of that?”

“Protecting his roommate.” Some immoral duty of friendship. Probably section 3A of the bro code Goro never got let in on. “Honor among thieves, as they say. You have no idea what kind of sly fox he could be.”

“Yusuke isn’t like that,” Ann says.

“You say that with such firmness.”

“Not everybody is out to get you, Goro! You don’t have to be a detective to figure a few things out. A girl knows things too, you know!”

Goro has no good rebuttal for that. He just watches as Ann grabs her life supply of candy and flops down on the couch, waiting. His brain is still inexplicably stuck on _not everybody is out to get you_ , the opposite of which may as well be the motto of Goro’s life. It’s also proven very effective as a detective: always assume that people cannot be trusted. Everyone’s hiding something, and they’ll do whatever they can to keep it hidden. 

“Yusuke said he didn’t know any of this was even going on,” Ann says. “He had no idea that you were their neighbor and also Akira’s new boyfriend.”

Goro will reluctantly admit—not out loud—that Kitagawa’s complete obliviousness in the face of romance makes that more than plausible. And besides, Akira kept his tracks expertly hidden, never inviting Goro to his apartment, never mentioning any details about his living space or whom he lived with. It wouldn’t surprise Goro if he was a well-preserved secret that just happened to blow up in Akira’s face.

He rubs a hand over his face before he lets himself get worked up again. Maybe he just needs to write more passionate emails to management; that always seems to help, even if his emails are ending up unread in trash. The act of venting is powerful. Almost as powerful as enacting a plan of cold, bitter revenge.

“Maybe he didn’t,” Goro concedes. “But what does it matter what Kitagawa knows or doesn’t know?”

“I just thought it would help to know that it wasn’t... some big prank they were all in on together,” Ann explains. “I think it really was just a mistake that got out of hand.”

So that’s what he’s been reduced to. Being someone’s secret. Being someone’s mistake. It’s like Shido all over again, who didn’t even want to admit that Goro was his son until Goro had the proof that forced him to accept it.

“I don’t care what it was,” Goro says. He sits down on his armchair, the comfiest thing he owns, and still feels stiff and cold. “Intentional or not, a mistake is still a mistake. And I’m deciding not to forgive him.”

He grabs the remote and turns on his documentary of choice before Ann can argue with him. He was hurt; shouldn’t that be enough for Ann, as his best friend, to defend his honor and chase off those challenging it with a barbed bat? 

He turns the volume up on the TV just in case Ann still has any ideas about continuing the conversation.

\--

“There’s no way that that mushroom collector wasn’t involved somehow,” Ann says through a mouthful of chips. “I mean, he just happens to find a decapitated head in the mountains? What do you think, Goro?”

“Mm,” Goro says in response, noncommittal. It’s day two of their documentary spree, interrupted only by the threat of class and work earlier in the afternoon, and Ann’s been sucked in much more than expected. Goro himself isn’t as focused. His mind keeps wandering.

Maybe they should’ve gone for horror movies instead. Or maybe he should’ve let Ann drag him to a club full of her model friends and set him up with one of the photographers. Anything to keep from dwelling on that night, and that party, and that _boy_ responsible for it all going pear-shaped.

Making matters worse is how eerily quiet it’s been upstairs since. No heavy footsteps, no loud music, no blaring television. It’s like they’re all being extra careful not to offend Goro now that he’s already offended. Annoyingly enough, the uncharacteristic silence only makes Goro more aware of their presence than ever.

There had been another note on the door when Goro had come back from campus. It had been shorter, but no easier to digest. _Can we talk? Please._

Goro isn’t responding. He has nothing left to say here. At least nothing Akira wants to hear, anyway.

“Goro? Are you even watching?”

“What?” Goro says. “Of course I am.”

Ann narrows her eyes. She pauses the TV and points at it. “Then who do you think did it?”

Goro wildly tries to recall one helpful detail about the case that he surely must’ve absorbed in the past hour. He comes up blank. “We don’t have nearly enough details to come to a conclusion just yet,” he says smoothly.

“You big fat liar.” She leans closer. “You know, if you want to talk about—”

“I don’t!” Goro says harshly. “Don’t bring him up again!”

She rolls her mouth together, an obvious sign that she has more to say on the matter that she knows Goro doesn’t want to hear. Goro desperately wants the documentary he wasn’t even paying attention to back.

“D'you think that maybe the only reason you’re so annoyed at Joker is because he sort of pushed back on you a bit?” she says.

Goro straightens up. “Are you suggesting that most people just give me whatever I want?”

“Well—a lot of people, yeah.” Goro opens his mouth to insert his icy opinion and Ann quickly continues. “I’m not talking about people like Shido. But TV people. And fans. They just kind of agree with you on everything, right?”

Yes, that may be true, but Goro distinctly remembers a time when that actively irritated him. Did he really get used to being surrounded by yes-men?

“I just think maybe you’re not used to you getting as good as you give,” Ann says, shifting.

He doesn’t want to think about Ann being right. He doesn’t want to think about it at _all_ ; he’s wasted too much time doing so already. It’s done, it’s over, and Goro’s never going to speak to Akira ever again, except maybe to arrest him with glee. For what, Goro doesn’t know yet.

He unpauses the TV program and ignores Ann’s eyes watching him, shifting over to him every so often as if to check to see if he’s paying attention or mentally wandering off into unpleasant thoughts again. Goro can’t fault Ann too much, who, with her mountain of snacks and good intentions, is touching even if all of it is wrongheaded. It’s not lost on him that Ann hasn’t brought up her date with Kitagawa, probably out of deference to Goro’s mood, which definitely can’t handle happy stories of other people’s successful dates. He’s at least assuming it was successful; if it hadn’t been, Ann would’ve brought it up just to make Goro feel better. She knows how much he loves hearing about other people’s disasters.

He can’t keep going like this. He doesn’t care about Ann’s conjectures about Joker’s true nature, or Akira’s apologies. The only way out is by cutting himself off from all this trouble, all of which is stemming from this damn apartment building. It’s cursing Goro’s already cursed life. It doesn’t matter if Goro likes the layout, or if the location is ideal, or if this place isn’t swarming with his most devoted stalkers, not anymore. All that matters is that his fiend of an ex-boyfriend lives upstairs, and that Goro can’t even look at a single corner of this place without thinking of him.

Goro knows what this means, even if he desperately wishes there would be another way. He’ll have to call Shido again.

\--

“Do you think I have nothing better to do all day than go apartment hunting for you?” is what Shido says when Goro brings up his need to be moved—urgently—again.

Goro usually prides himself on his skills of persuasion, but this phone call isn’t going well. Not that Shido has ever been great at listening, but he is especially deaf to Goro’s apartment woes. Goro balances his phone between his ear and shoulder as he lets himself into the complex.

“That’s a nice apartment you’re living in right now,” Shido says. “Some people are living under bridges.”

He leaves a menacing pause, as if to imply that’s what will be Goro’s next residence if he keeps up the complaints.

“You should feel lucky that you have a roof over your head,” Shido advises. 

Goro isn’t falling for the intimidation tactics. “It’s just turned out that my neighbors are a bit more… hostile than I imagined,” Goro grinds out. “Perhaps if I could just be relocated to a nearby—”

“Now you need me to come in and play referee for you and those people?” Shido interjects. “Akechi, when are you going to grow up and deal with your own problems?”

Goro almost bites off his own tongue and swallows it. Shido has no idea what he’s talking about, not when it comes to dealing with your own shit on your own terms. Goro’s been helping him with that for years, and yet now that Goro needs a little bit of assistance—

“I have to go,” Shido says, annoyed, which is just as well, because Goro was about to throw his phone into a trash can. “Just—find a solution, Akechi.”

He hangs up. _Find a solution._ Goro will remember that kindness the next time Shido asks him a favor, like blithely outing the sins of one of his corporate rivals the next time he’s on air. Maybe next time he’ll praise the people Shido wants him to publicly eviscerate instead, and that perhaps might be satisfying enough to quench the aching rawness that’s been growing like a gaping maw in his chest ever since he found out his new boyfriend humiliated and deceived him.

He checks the mail and thumbs through the letters, still angry and replaying that phone conversation in his head as he throws out the ads and the junk mail. _Need to relax?_ says one flyer. _Spend a weekend with your loved one in beautiful Hokkaido!_

Goro rests his forehead against his mailbox. He’s so tired. Tired from keeping up with work, from dealing with Shido, from craving Leblanc coffee, from throwing out Akira’s apologies, from having to run to classes between all of the above. 

He peels his forehead off the mailbox and sighs, and when he turns around, Akira is there. Fuck. This is what Goro gets for dallying.

“Hey,” Akira says. Goddamn miscreant. Was he planning to ambush Goro like this? Goro _knew_ he needed to be careful around the mailboxes. In the war zone of the apartment complex, it’s no man’s land. “Bad phone call?”

Goro goes cold. “You were listening in?”

He shrugs. “Didn’t mean to,” he says.

Right. How could Goro forget—lack of intention means total innocence in Akira’s naive little world. Just like how he supposedly didn’t mean to hide his secret identity as the bane of Goro’s existence, and that means Goro needs to forgive him. That might even be the very reason he’s cornered Goro here now.

Well. Goro sees no point in giving him the satisfaction of staying.

“I really need to get going,” Goro says, voice cool. If Akira really has been eavesdropping, he must’ve heard the bit about Goro desperately wanting to get away from his evil, evil neighbors, and should be able to take a hint.

He starts heading for the stairs, but Akira quickly blocks his way. So maybe he can’t take a hint.

“Wait,” Akira says. “Do you have a moment?”

Goro will not spare even a nanosecond. “I’m afraid not.”

“Please,” Akira says. He tries to offer Goro a soft little smile that Goro refuses to get drawn in by. “This Joker humbly requests an audience with the Detective Prince. He has a case for him to solve.”

Is he now coming to Goro with job offers to get his attention? The tactic is unfortunately working, as it’s making him much more curious than it should.

“It’s a case of a stolen heart,” Akira says, stepping a tiny bit closer. “Mine’s gone missing.”

What a coincidence; Goro’s was found broken and splintered into a thousand pieces recently, but he’s not running off to law enforcement asking for help. He’s taking care of it _himself_ , despite what Shido thinks of him being unable to handle his own messes.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Goro says, voice lofty. “I don’t offer my services for free, and I doubt you’d be able to afford me.”

He tries to walk by again, but this time Akira grabs him by the arm, stepping closer. Too close, really. Goro’s heart stutters for a second of panic.

“Please,” Akira murmurs. He lets go of his arm, but only to gently brush his thumb over Goro’s jaw, which is worse, so much worse. “I didn’t mean to let it go on this long without telling you. I know you might not like Joker, but—”

Goro takes a sharp step back. “ _Not like Joker?_ ” He laughs, the sound of it slightly manic. “My apologies if you misunderstood. I _despise_ Joker, with his immature jokes, and the way he taunts me, and how inconsiderately loud he is _all the time_ , and ever since I found out _you_ are Joker, I despise Akira Kurusu, too!”

He takes off for the stairs in a dash while Akira is too startled to follow him, the adrenaline from his shouting all but shooting him upwards, trying to outrun the possibility of Akira following him, trying to outrun his own thoughts. What the fuck has Akira done to him? He was never the sort of person who went about yelling insults in hallways; no, he has a public image he’s taken immense care of to preserve, the one of the man who smiles and laughs and makes polite little comments.

He hopes all that hurt him just now, and maybe now Akira will go lick his wounds, just like Goro’s been doing. Maybe he’ll even move out and leave Goro alone forever and take all his stupid little ruffian roommates along with him.

Later, in the safety of Ann’s apartment far across town after they’ve eaten dinner, Ann doesn’t find it so amusing when Goro tells her about the quest to push Akira out of his life forever.

“You really told him you hate him?” she says, eyes wide. She doesn’t have to look so surprised. Goro hates a lot of people, and his list was bound to grow. “Then what did he do?”

Goro turns _I don’t know because I fled the premises in a tantrum-like, humiliated rage_ into, “I left before he could form a response.”

“Oh, Goro,” she sighs. “Why did you do that?”

Goro blinks. She’s supposed to be proud of him for standing up for himself, not doing that disappointed drooping of her eyes. For fuck’s sake, Akira is the bully, not _Goro_.

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t actually hate him,” Ann says. “Right?”

Of course he does. Akira lied to him for weeks about being the heavy-stomping, party-throwing, sly-talking neighbor whose notes infuriated Goro to no end, while simultaneously also wearing the mask of the kind, funny, open-minded boyfriend who smelled temptingly like coffee beans. The kind of boyfriend that Goro always wanted but always figured wasn’t ever going to be possible for him.

Of course he hates him. How dare Ann even try to interrogate him!

“I do,” he insists. “Don’t tell me you thought I’ve been… pining away all the time.”

“Well, yeah. Kinda.”

“ _What?_ What possibly could have given you that impression?” Goro doesn’t want Akira back; he wants revenge and a cold-hearted victory over him. How Ann has been oblivious to this bloodlust is beyond him. “I want him out of my life, and possibly also the building. I’m working on achieving the latter.”

“What exactly are you gonna do?” Ann asks, much too skeptical for Goro’s liking.

“I don’t know yet. It shouldn’t be too hard to evict them. They must be breaking at least several building rules,” Goro says, thinking aloud. “I’ll have to take a closer look at the lease.”

“Oh boy.” Ann slides closer and throws an arm around Goro’s shoulders. “Goro. Do you really think that getting Akira evicted will make you feel better?”

She’s talking to him like she’s speaking to a child. Goro is already annoyed; Ann strategically invited him to her place because there are no documentaries here, only romance movies, two of which Goro has already had to sit through. His regard for love has now gone from slightly soured to sheer disgust.

He doesn’t want Akira around. Akira wronged him, and Goro is in the business of righting wrongs. He has a professional duty to justice to make sure Akira gets his comeuppance.

“Yes,” Goro says firmly. “I should’ve already tried to evict him months ago, and then none of this would’ve even happened.”

Ann gets up, arm leaving Goro’s shoulder, and heads suspiciously in the direction of her DVD rack. She puts her hands on her hips as she browses through yet more torturous romantic comedies.

“Maybe you’ll feel better after a good movie,” she declares. Goro doubts that any of the movies Ann wants to recommend him will be the medicine for his ills—not that he’s feeling poorly in the first place. On the contrary, all this scheming is healing him nicely. “What about… this one!”

She picks one and shoves it into her laptop before Goro can protest, and suddenly the next two hours are full of lingering glances and a romantic piano-based soundtrack.

He watches the film, but he doesn’t really pay attention. He lets his mind wander while Ann sniffs next to him, somehow touched by moments of shy hand-holding. Maybe he can do something to Akira’s apartment to drive him out—a bad smell, or a subtle but relentless noise. An electronic hum with an unknown source, perhaps, although that might not be quite wicked enough. Getting into the apartment would be a big challenge, though.

The eviction angle is probably his best bet. And there’s a good chance that someone like Sakamoto is smuggling drugs or other such contraband in that apartment, if only Goro had caught a _look_ of something incriminating during that party.

He jerks forward on the couch to pause the movie on Ann’s laptop. “Hey, Ann,” he says. He ignores her glare at his audacity to stop that atrocity of a film. “Did you ever see anything… strange at Kitagawa’s apartment?”

“Strange how?”

“As in illegal,” Goro clarifies. “Worth investigating. Ideally felonious.” But really, petty crime will do too.

“Seriously, Goro?” Ann says. “You need to relax.”

She aggressively unpauses the movie. Goro should’ve known; Ann’s emotionally invested in Kitagawa, and if Goro finds out there’s a meth lab being run in the apartment above his, Kitagawa certainly won’t escape persecution. Which, if it does so happen to be true, Goro would be doing Ann a massive favor.

The movie drones on. Goro, meanwhile, tries to recall the details of the apartment he can remember beyond the pile of liquor in the kitchen and the look on Akira’s face when Goro confronted him on all his vicious lies. He’s been mentally distancing himself from that night, all those cold memories of feeling fiercely hurt and betrayed, but now he tries to pick apart the finer bits, look for the damning details he’s overlooked, just like he does with a case.

What has Joker unwittingly revealed to him over the weeks? What happened once Goro stepped inside the apartment? Kitagawa greeted them, and they were led inside, and Sakamoto came out of the bushes to say hello, and—

Oh, that’s right. Oh, this is _perfect_.

Goro pauses the movie again. “I’ve got it,” he says, speaking before Ann can unleash The Glare. “ _I’ve got it_. Ann, what did Sakamoto say to you when you asked to use the bathroom?”

Ann regards him with careful skepticism. “What? Do you honestly expect me to remember that?”

“He said there was a cat tree in the shower.” Goro could cry with euphoria. There it is, the inescapable smoking gun of his impending triumph. He lets himself cackle, just once, as a treat. “I’ve got it. Ann, it’s perfect.”

He leaps to his feet, exuberant. This battle is his to win, he just needs to strike.

He grabs his phone and dials up the building manager. Each moment it rings syncs with Goro’s exuberant heartbeat. He’s going to get what he wants; he can feel it.

“Is the building manager available?” Goro asks once someone picks up and he’s introduced himself. “I’ve sent some emails I’d like to discuss.”

He gets put on hold. Ann gets to her feet now too. “What are you doing?” she demands in a whisper.

The right thing. The _just_ thing. Goro’s about to explain as much when the building manager picks up.

“Akechi-san,” the manager says, already sounding tired when the conversation is not even thirty seconds old yet. “Yes, we’ve seen your complaints.”

“There’s been truly an unacceptable amount of noise emanating from the apartment above me,” Goro continues. He puts on his most agreeable voice, the one that honeys all his barbed edges. He needs to seem perfectly amiable before he drops the coup de grace. “I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but nothing’s been done.”

“Someone took a look and spoke to the tenants,” the manager says, which is a lie if Goro’s ever heard one. “And we'll look into your more recent complaints as well when we have the time.”

“I see,” Goro says. Ann shakes her head and tries to make a swipe for the phone, but Goro dodges her. “And just out of curiosity, what about the pet policy—is the building very strict on that?”

“Pets aren’t allowed,” the manager says. “It’s explicitly stated in your lease.”

“That’s what I thought. See, I have it on excellent authority that the very same apartment that’s been the source of all the noise is also harboring a cat on the premises. This isn’t allowed, now, is it?”

Goro bites his lip to keep from singing, cheering, laughing. There’ll be no return from this. No way out. He’s a _genius_ , truly a detective worth his salt.

“No—no, it isn’t allowed,” the manager says. He sounds almost surprised that Goro’s brought forth such a legitimate complaint, which Goro decides not to take offense to in light of his ascending mood. “We’ll send someone over right away to check that out.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Goro says smoothly. “Exceptions to such a rule really wouldn’t be fair, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Right. Yes. We’ll look into that immediately.”

Goro feels as if he could soar straight through the ceiling as he hangs up. He tries to keep his smug grin to acceptable levels.

Ann, however, looks thunderous. Worried and upset and also mad all at once. “Goro,” she says very slowly. “What have you done?”

Goro speaks with nothing but conviction as he says, “I’ve finished it. I’ve finished this ridiculous battle and I’ve won it. Don’t you see?”

“Oh, I see,” Ann says. “I see that you’ve just made the guy you’re clearly still in love with homeless, along with his totally innocent roommates.”

Goro sputters. “Still in love with!”

“ _And_ I see that you’d rather target a guy’s _cat_ than have a real conversation with someone who hurt you all because of the baggage you carry around from all the rotten adults who’ve taken advantage of you your whole life!”

No, Ann’s looking at this all wrong. Goro could spew lava. He’s taking a stand for himself, not quietly accepting betrayal, actually retaliating against people who Goro is decidedly _not_ in love with.

And what’s that worst that could happen? Being pushed out of his apartment and living a few weeks in that shabby old attic again might actually straighten Akira out, make him realize that his actions have consequences. He can’t puppeteer Goro’s feelings around on strings and just get away with it.

Except—that eviction would stay on Akira’s record for a while, most likely years. And it may affect his ability to rent out a different apartment. Combined with that stint with the law Akira had mentioned from back in high school, it might be nigh impossible.

“Goro!” Ann snaps.

But this is what he deserves, isn’t it? Goro wants his undiluted triumph to come back. Now he’s bogged down with thoughts of consequences and if he’s just ruined Akira’s life and just how fair this tit-for-tat exchange really is. Akira broke Goro’s heart, so Goro is making it so that he, his cat, and his two annoying but altogether harmless best friends are all homeless.

Oh god. What _has_ he done?

Has he really turned into that sort of vindictive, narrow-minded maniac? That would make him no better than Shido, who wants to cut down people who just look at him the wrong way on the street, and if turning into his cruel father isn’t morbid enough to think about—

Fuck. This was a mistake. This was a huge, colossal mistake and Goro didn’t even notice because he was clouded over with the fog of his own selfish revenge. Can he even fix this? How is he supposed to fix this? He can’t very well call again and take back his grand accusation. The manager had said they were going to look into this _immediately_ ; what can Goro even do in that short amount of time?

“I need to go,” Goro says. He doesn’t know what to do, but he knows he can’t do anything at all here at Ann’s place. He looks around, as if hoping a solution will appear. “I need to—fix this.”

“How?!” Ann asks. She sounds terrified of what Goro could possibly be capable of, which is both flattering and annoying. “What are you gonna do?”

Something. He doesn’t have all the details just yet. “I’ll figure it out,” Goro says as he heads for the door. Step one is to get out of here. He can construct the rest of the plan on the way.

He can’t reverse this, but he may be able to _salvage_ it. The management has never been particularly speedy looking into any of Goro’s concerns in the past, but maybe this is the one time _right away_ really does mean _right away_. If that’s the case, maybe the best course of action is to temporarily relocate the problem. Goro’s never had pets before—because he, unlike some rebels, preferred to follow building regulations—but it’s just a cat; surely it could be hidden away in Goro’s apartment for a small while.

“Keep me posted!” Ann says. “And don’t do anything stupid, Goro!”

Goro would argue that he never does anything stupid if he hadn’t, just now, done something tremendously stupid. He hurtles out the door and down the stairs like he’s in pursuit of something—which he is, maybe, his own sanity being the likeliest of possibilities. His thoughts are fragmenting off into a thousand different directions, a thousand different ways in which this horrible little situation Goro’s birthed could unfold. Hatred is one—Akira could finally give in and hate Goro as much as he hates him.

Hate. He doesn’t hate Akira. He’s heartsore and sad and disappointed and injured and furious, but mostly everything just aches all over because he gave out the rare gift of his trust and experienced it being handled ungently. Not everybody is out to get you, Ann had said. If that’s true, then he may seriously need to reevaluate some other things Ann has said that he’s thoughtlessly brushed off.

What if Ann’s right, and Akira really is sorry, and all this was just one big, unintended mistake?

His lungs are burning and his chest is heaving by the time Goro gets to the train station, but he doesn’t have time to waste by slowing down. He barrels through people in his way, never giving anyone the chance to see him long enough to recognize him.

It works until he hits the train and hastens inside, at which point people start noticing and pointing and whispering. Goro can only pray that none of them will approach him; not only is he sweaty and disheveled from his mad dash, but he’s also intensely concentrated on other matters, too concentrated to dedicate effort to slipping on his Detective Prince persona. He has a cat to save, and a situation to rectify, and possibly even an apology to actually hear out.

“Excuse me,” says a girl regardless, obviously not picking up on his intense focus. She’s looking at Goro like she’s just won the lottery. “Goro Akechi?”

Goro makes a snap decision. “No,” he says. “Sorry. Wrong person. I get that a lot, though.”

God, what is he doing? He’s never once refused an autograph or a selfie or a moment with a swooning fan, always very careful to maintain his approachable public image, but right now his tunnel vision is blocking everything out except for his goal. It feels—nice. Thrillingly so. Like he’s doing something for himself for once.

The girl slumps away and the train finally starts moving. It feels so much slower than usual today. Would he have been better off just running?

It’s too late now. All he can do is grab onto the handrail and try to stop shaking so much. 

It takes an eternity for him to switch trains and actually arrive, and another eternity for him to wrestle himself free of all the crowds also trying to squeeze out of the train and through the station. It’s busy—packed, really—which makes sense given that nothing ever comes easily to Goro, especially in times of crisis.

He dashes until his chest is tight and his legs are protesting. This might just be the most undignified Goro has ever allowed himself to look in public, running around like an escaped prisoner on the loose. By the time he reaches the apartment, he’s racing up the stairs like something’s following him.

He pounds on the door, all decorum momentarily lost in favor of urgency. Goro can only hope that someone’s home, and that someone is Akira, and that he’s not too late—

The door swings open. Akira stands on the other side. His expression turns to surprise when he realizes it’s Goro standing there.

“Goro,” he says, stepping forward. He sounds so relieved, which makes Goro’s bad news go turbulent in his stomach—but there is no time for guilt now.

No time for the apology Akira’s no doubt about to launch into either. “Give me your cat,” Goro interrupts him.

“My—cat?”

“Yes, and _now_.”

Akira’s still not following. “You want my cat?”

“No, I don’t _want_ it, but I _need_ to get it out of your apartment and into mine.” He pushes his way past Akira and the threshold, searching. “Where is it?”

His desperation doesn’t seem to be contagious. Akira keeps blinking at him, unhelpful and unmoving. “Why exactly?”

“Because!” Goro shouts, feeling slightly insane from all these emotions. The frantic urgency to fix this, the fury at himself for doing it in the first place, the inexplicable, clawing desire to grab Akira by the face and kiss him out of sheer withdrawal. “Because I reported your cat to the management and they’re coming to check on you any minute now.”

Akira looks stunned. Goro doesn’t wait for the look of reproof, or the disappointment at the sort of underhanded tactics Goro is willing to resort to, just grabs Akira by the wrist and tugs hard.

“Now give me your cat and everything else that’s evidence of a cat ever living here!”

“Right.”

Akira doesn’t falter—finally understanding that swiftness is key here—and just hurries down the hall and comes back with a black cat scooped under one arm and a litter box in the other. He hands Goro the litter box and then goes back for more.

“Okay,” Goro says once Akira has gathered together dozens of pieces of pet paraphernalia. “Let’s go.”

He leads the way down the stairs, waiting for the thumping of Akira’s footsteps behind him—or is it possible that’s his own heartbeat he’s hearing? He keeps waiting for the building manager to pop up, for the enormity of his mistake to blow up in his face as he’s trying to fix it, but even with having to go up and down a few times for the cat tree and the bags of cat food and the cat bed, they make it down the stairs without any interruptions.

Goro locks the door behind them and leans against it, letting the relief trickle in. Akira stoops low to let go of the cat wriggling in his grip, who immediately hops up on the sofa and curls up in Goro’s spot. 

“His name’s Morgana,” Akira says.

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” Goro says, but it’s a sobering thought more than it is a comment. There’s probably a lot that Goro doesn’t know about Akira, or thought he knew, or had to be kept hidden when he was still the enigma that was Joker.

Akira seems to be spiraling down the same mental trail. “I really am sorry,” he says.

“Don’t,” Goro says roughly. He already knows, and he even believes it, but somehow that makes what Goro did so much worse. “I think we’re past that now.”

Past the point of apology, and straight into uncomfortable silence. The weight of not knowing what to say or how to proceed—a rare feeling for Goro—bears down on him. What are they now anyway? What is it Goro wants? What is it _Akira_ wants?

Akira cuts into Goro’s heavy-handed thoughts with a soft laugh. “So you really reported us?” he asks. He sounds more amused than mad, which doesn’t make any sense. Why isn’t he mad? Why is he always so cool and calm? Goro feels like blowing over about eighty percent of the day, and he would definitely turn into a human geyser if someone tried to under-handedly evict him.

“Yes,” Goro admits. He doesn’t look Akira in the eye. “I was upset.”

He can’t bring himself to offer an apology of his own. He still feels like his heart has been hog-tied, completely at the mercy of the man masquerading as his boyfriend while moonlighting as his rival. Even now, even after all of Goro’s anger has been dividing them, he still feels that pull, that draw to be near Akira and not let go. He’s never been good at letting go.

“And now?” Akira asks.

“Now?” 

“Are you… not upset anymore?”

He looks hopeful. Goro could wither underneath all that hope. After everything Goro’s done, Akira might seriously still want him? He must be some kind of masochist. Then again, Goro must be one too considering he still desperately wants the conniving little liar in front of him.

He crosses his arms in front of his chest. “I am,” he says. “But…” He rubs his nose and shuts his eyes; even just seeing Akira in his peripherals is too much right now. “You must be upset too.”

Suddenly Akira’s hand is wrapping around Goro’s wrist, pulling his arm away from his face. “I’m not,” he says. “You fixed it, didn’t you?”

Goro looks around the apartment, namely at the cat licking itself on his sofa. Before he can speak again, Akira’s doing it first.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I knew you were Crow,” he says. His grip is still soft on Goro’s wrist. “I had no idea at first. And I—I had just been hoping that you didn’t mind Joker as much as you made it seem.”

Goro thinks back to Ann’s well-meaning words about Joker giving Goro a run for his money with all their verbal sparring and Goro not being used to anyone ever doing so. Joker _was_ infuriating, especially the way he was an unknown, anonymous entity with the power to tilt Goro’s entire day off kilter. He was a machine of wit, a competition between floor and ceiling and pen and paper.

Except what if it was never a battle to begin with? What if Goro just assumed it to be?

“And Crow,” he says slowly. “What did you think of Crow?”

“I liked him,” Akira says. “I liked getting his notes.” His lips twitch. “Maybe I liked riling him up a bit too.”

On the edge of Goro’s memory sits the conversation he had with Kitagawa at the party, now coming back into view. Kitagawa had mentioned that Joker had spoken highly of him, found him intelligent and interesting.

“The noise was really unbearable,” Goro says. “And inconsiderate. Do you have any idea how loud you’ve been up there?”

“Uh.”

“But beyond that, Joker wasn’t so bad,” he admits. Dammit, Ann was right all along. What else does this mean she was right about? “I spend my day surrounded by inauthentic affection. All those people who watch me on TV and claim they’re in love with me—they’re no better than strangers. Joker was real with me, and I wasn’t used to it.”

“You’re wrong about that.”

“Hm?”

The hand still touching Goro’s wrist slips down into his fingers. He’s come closer now, closer than before—why Goro’s complaints about his noise levels would made Akira think Goro would welcome such proximity, he can’t fathom. Goro swallows. Akira squeezes his palm.

“I’m not any different,” Akira says. “I’m in love with you too.”

A funny sound escapes Goro’s throat. He sort of wants to shove Akira far away from him and he also sort of wants to just go for it and kiss that uncertain little smile right off his mouth.

“No,” he says, voice rough. “No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, I am.”

He says it far too casually, with no weight at all, like this has become an indisputable fact for him that he’s accepted as one would the weather, knowing it to be unchangeable. Goro feels light-headed and also, for a reason he can’t explain, angry again.

“No, you’re not,” he insists again. “I’m the man who sold you out to the apartment management. I was putting together plans to butter your every belonging. I shouted at you by the mailboxes that I hate you.”

That should be enough, surely, as proof that Goro hasn’t done anything in this situation that’s made him worthy of genuine love, but Akira won’t stop looking at him with these fond eyes and this soft smile that’s pushing Goro’s heart up to his teeth.

“I know,” Akira says.

“And you’re—you’re the idiot who couldn’t find a way to communicate with me properly and had to send moronic _notes_ instead! What kind of person does that?!”

“I know.”

“Stop saying that!” Goro yells. Then he doesn’t know what happens next, who’s the one possessed with a moment of insanity, who’s the one who moves first, but then Goro’s hands are wrapped around Akira’s shirt and Akira’s kissing him, possibly just to stop him from talking or maybe just because he also can’t contain himself anymore. Goro tries not to think too hard about it; he’s been thinking entirely too hard. His knees go weak from how abruptly the moment went from desperation to anger to _this_ , this needy, bruising desire.

It’s not a very long kiss, all in all. Goro’s out of breath from his outrage and the sheer shock at exactly what is happening almost jolts him away, but Akira feels too good in his arms to let that happen, familiar and warm and exhilarating. Akira holds onto him almost too hard, arms wound tightly around Goro’s shoulders even after the kiss is over like he’s worried Goro will wiggle himself free or disappear altogether.

Goro has no plans to go anymore. Now that he’s in Akira’s arms he feels somehow both dizzy and as if everything is becoming clear. It suddenly seems so silly that he’s let himself go this long without this, no matter the reasons. All of that anger just feels useless now.

“I’m in love with you,” Akira says, whispering this time. “Please say you forgive me, Crow.”

_I do_ , Goro thinks, but he knows better than to just hand out such acquiescence so easily. A smirk pulls at his mouth. “How will you make it up to me?” he asks.

“Hm. I can think of a few ways.”

He kisses Goro again, and it occurs to Goro that the withdrawal might’ve been mutual. He moans without meaning to, just a quiet whine swallowed by Akira’s kiss, and buries his hands into Akira’s untidy hair.

Without meaning to, he thinks about the last time he had Akira here with him—specifically, what they did on that couch, and then the bed, and how many times. The memories are like firecrackers to Goro’s arousal, lighting up each of his nerves as Akira kisses down his chin, and then down the slope of his neck.

“Do you—” Akira murmurs on Goro’s skin. “Is this okay?”

In response, Goro curls Akira’s shirt around his fists and yanks him into another kiss, hard and demanding this time, but just in case that’s not clear enough, he says, “More than okay.” He trails his teeth over Akira’s bottom lip. “Ideal, even.”

Akira groans, and he immediately puts his newfound permission to good use by grabbing Goro by the ass and squeezing. All of it is starting to make Goro delirious—a few hours ago he was sulking in Ann’s apartment and trying to exact revenge on someone who’s now feeling him up. Things are moving forward swimmingly.

Goro leads him over to the couch by the shirt, intending to drop him down onto it and settle into his lap, but stops when he hears a loud meow of objection. He tears himself away from Akira to look over his shoulder and sees Morgana sitting up, watching, almost indignant.

“Okay,” Akira says, then has to take a moment to laugh. “Not there, then.”

Goro doesn’t care where if the sofa won’t do. Any flat surface, and it doesn’t even have to be horizontal. As a matter of fact, he’d quite like to be pressed between Akira and a wall, legs hooked around his waist. The bed, though, would admittedly be easier, which is where Goro tugs him for convenience’s sake.

Goro pushes Akira down onto the mattress with a shove that leaves Akira sprawled and waiting. He grins at Goro, and that alone—the sight of Akira disheveled and expectant and smirking and propped up on his elbows on Goro’s bed—instantly has his dick reporting for duty. Goro follows him onto the bed, and within seconds Akira rolls them over and has Goro on his back beneath him, sliding a hand up Goro’s shirt as he kisses him hard.

“Are you my boyfriend again?” Akira asks, which is a bit of an unfair question to ask when his fingers are rubbing over Goro’s nipples.

“Ah—provided you adhere to some—” Goro swallows, back arching, “—conditions.”

“Hm?”

Goro ruts his hips upward into Akira’s to level the playing field a bit; it’s only fair that Akira’s just as worked up and distracted as Goro is by now. There’s too much clothing between, far too much fabric, and Goro seeks to remedy that by yanking Akira’s shirt over his head.

“I can’t handle the noise anymore,” Goro says firmly. “I really can’t. It’s unbearable. And _rude_.”

Akira nods, then kisses him again, as if to soothe the complaints out of him.

“And your blond friend—he needs to stop being such a little shit to me,” Goro grumbles.

“Ryuji?”

“Yes, him—and you need to make sure Kitagawa treats Ann right! I have extremely high standards for her.”

Is he undermining the strictness of his own words by running his hands up and down Akira’s naked chest? It’s much more distracting than Goro remembers. He arches upward to kiss Akira, which, for whatever reason, helps him think.

“Are these your dealbreakers?” Akira asks when the kiss ends.

“No,” Goro says, fully aware by now that there is next to nothing that would break this deal with Akira. “They’re _ground rules_.”

“Noted.”

The conversation ends after that. Akira’s fingers start fumbling with Goro’s pants while Goro pulls Akira’s glasses off and throws them in the direction of the pillows. Goro wants nothing in the way, nothing, but before he can work on Akira’s jeans, Akira’s sneaking a hand past the Goro’s waistband of his underwear and curling his fingers around Goro’s cock. He’s tentative, like he’s still waiting for Goro to change his mind, but Goro’s mind is made up and has been ever since he ran out of Ann’s apartment like a madman. He hisses and drags himself through Akira’s fist, encouraging movement.

“You said,” Goro says through a hitched breath, “that you were going to make it up to me.”

“I did.”

“When are you _getting_ to that part?”

Akira smiles. He looks far too smug, almost cheeky, just like Joker’s notes, always teasing, always prodding. “Whenever you’re ready,” he says through that insufferable grin.

“Do I look unprepared?”

Akira doesn’t bother answering, too occupied opening the buttons of Goro’s shirt and licking over a freshly-exposed nipple. Goro’s spine bows under the sudden attention, Akira’s mouth sharp and hot at all once, while his hands push Goro’s pants and underwear all the way down his legs, where Goro promptly kicks them off. He doesn’t know what Akira has planned, but he’s on board, his entire body taut and thrumming.

“Goro,” Akira murmurs onto Goro’s chest. He’s moved his attentions to the curve of each of Goro’s ribs, leaving breathless kisses behind like signatures. “Do you have lube?”

Akira looks at him with dark eyes, ones that magnetize. Goro sits up, on board with that too, and goes rummaging through his nightstand for the tube. He does this sometimes, when time permits and he wants to unwind, but he’s never actually imagined trusting someone else enough to do it. He wants it now, though. He thinks about Akira’s fingers inside him, deep and strong and slick, and craves the real thing so badly it’s like hunger pains are spasming through him. He holds the lube out for Akira to take.

Akira does, but not before he presses a few reassuring kisses to the inside of Goro’s thigh. How he can be both so gentle and assertive is a mystery. The way his hands curl around Goro’s knees to spread them is soft and dominant in equal measure, and Goro lets his head tip back as he gives into the ministrations. It feels like he’s being taken care of, looked after, and after building up so much tension for so many days, laying here under Akira’s touch feels like sinking into a hot bath.

“I missed you,” Akira whispers, almost too quietly to hear, into Goro’s hipbone. He’s kissing him all over, melting Goro into the sheets, and then a slick finger is rubbing over his hole and suddenly all that melting crystallizes into sharp anticipation. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Goro’s whole body quivers as Akira circles the rim of his entrance, pressing not quite enough to give Goro what he wants. He jerks his hips, helpless to stop the moan rising from his throat, and tries to push downward into Akira’s touch. It should really be embarrassing, especially when he glances down and sees how raptly Akira’s watching, as if entranced by the sight, but instead a lightning bolt of heat strikes Goro. This thrill of being wanted like this, so hungrily, so differently from how he’s wanted by his fans and admirers, is still new to him.

“What did you think about?” Goro asks.

Akira licks his lips, but doesn’t drag his eyes away from where he’s still teasing Goro’s ass. “Everything,” he confesses. “Having coffee with you. Waking up next to you. Kissing you.” He swallows and Goro watches the movement slide down his throat. “Having you like this.”

Goro feigns innocence and tries to steady his voice. “Like this?”

“All—stretched out for me.”

His finger finally slides into Goro, past the knuckle. He starts up a rhythm that’s far too slow for Goro’s liking, rubbing and feeling and discovering his way deeper in, before pulling out again to rub at the furled muscle of Goro’s hole.

“You’re incredible,” Akira rasps. “It’s—it’s crazy how good you look right now.”

Any response Goro has at the ready is swallowed up by the gasp he lets out as Akira slides two fingers in this time, still gentle but getting firmer. Goro is helpless not to open up for him, especially when Akira’s fingers start searching, angling experimentally until Goro’s shaking and gasping, his body a burning shock wire.

Akira presses more kisses into the overheating skin of Goro’s legs while he bears down on Goro’s prostate with his fingers. Goro can feel the curve of Akira’s mouth on his knee as he smirks. “Am I making it up to you yet?”

God, it’s just _infuriating_ that Akira is still capable of such coherent conversation while Goro can barely string words together. His breathing has gone ragged, his every nerve a sparkler, so much so that when Akira wraps his unoccupied hand around Goro’s dick, Goro hastens to swat it away.

“Don’t,” he says. He inhales shallowly, trying to regain control over his body. “I don’t want to come like this.”

Akira’s fingers falter inside of him for a moment. “You—you sure?”

Goro nods. “You know what I want, don’t you?” He winds a hand back into Akira’s hair, finding the spot comforting for his fingers. “Come on, Joker. I want you to fuck me.”

Akira’s eyes go dark, blown and dilated with need. “Goro,” he says. His voice has changed too, deep and thirsty. “Fuck, I want that too.”

Not that he seems to be in a hurry; he seems to be enjoying watching Goro come helplessly undone. He squeezes a third finger into Goro, spreading and stretching him with such careful care that Goro’s impatience almost— _almost_ —starts to give way. He doesn’t want Akira’s fingers anymore, he wants the real thing, the burn and fullness of his cock, pushing into Goro relentlessly.

He throws his head back against the pillows and tightens his grip in Akira’s hair to make as much clear when Akira’s fingers rub over his sweet spot again, clearly addicted to the noises Goro is in total obedience of when Akira thrusts them in just right.

“ _Come on_ ,” Goro groans. “Stop teasing me. _Akira_ —”

His words disintegrate into a whine when Akira finally pulls his fingers out. He loosens his grasp on Akira’s curls long enough so Akira can shuck off his pants and underwear, revealing his cock, hard and wet with pre-come at the tip. Goro feels the urge to touch it, taste it, and feel it inside him all at once, even though he knows one of those will have to take precedent.

Akira digs around in the pocket of his pants, pulling a condom out before tossing them aside.

“Well, aren’t you prepared,” Goro says, propping himself up on his elbows to watch Akira prepare himself.

Akira gives him a reassuring little smile. “Nobody but you has appreciated that in a long time,” he says, which fills Goro with far more warmth than it has any right to.

He slicks himself up after he’s rolled on the condom, Goro watching the display with growing arousal. He’d be tempted to stroke himself if the possibility of coming then and there to the sight of Akira preparing to fuck him wouldn’t be so high, and coming is something he doesn’t intend to do until Akira’s inside him. Goro reaches out to pull Akira close again, opening up his legs and lifting his hips. All that trust he thought he had lost for Akira comes flooding back in, not ever truly gone but just locked away behind a door, a door Goro can’t help but open when he sees that dark, needy look in Akira’s eyes.

“I’ll go slow,” he promises, lining himself up. Just the bare suggestion of pressure of Akira’s cockhead against Goro’s hole has him trembling, wanting more than he’s ever wanted anything before.

Akira starts pushing in, head hung so all Goro can see is a mass of hair and shaking shoulders. Goro has to force air into his lungs when the head of Akira’s cock slips inside, the stretch much fuller than that of his fingers. When he stops partway, sliding in only incrementally, Goro digs his nails into Akira’s shoulders.

“Keep going,” he says. “I want it.”

Akira lets out a strangled noise. “Just—give me a second.”

_Oh_. Goro laughs without meaning to, drawing his legs up around Akira’s waist. “You’re enjoying this that much?”

Another fragmented sound. Akira’s head dips down, this time to leave messy kisses on Goro’s clavicle. “You feel amazing,” he says hoarsely. “Fuck, I love you.”

“Akira,” he groans. Heat grips Goro by the spine. He’s not sure that’s something he’ll ever be able to hear without his heart thudding against his ribcage. 

Goro tightens his legs around Akira, padlocking his feet into place over his back, and feels Akira’s shaky exhale land on his chest before he starts rolling his hips forward. Akira adjusts just right, angling upward, and he slides in the rest of the way, smooth and easy, until he’s filling Goro completely, heart and mind included. The feeling is intense enough that Goro feels drunk on it, completely awash in the seismic sensations.

Why did he try to go without this for so long? He’s an idiot, an idiot detective, which is a worrying combination of traits he’ll have to examine later. For now he’s focused on the pace Akira’s begun to settle into, pulling out and rolling back in with increasing confidence. His whip-smart wit is gone for now, replaced with the same undone need that’s holding onto Goro too, chest heaving and breathing labored.

His levee of control truly snaps, though, when Akira thrusts in a bit harder and hits his prostate, the pleasure zapping in like a tasering. Goro moans, muscles seizing and clenching down on Akira’s cock.

“ _Akira_ ,” Goro whines, back arching. His hands are getting sweaty where they’re clutching Akira’s back, desperate for purchase.

“Fuck,” Akira says. “The way you say my name—” His hips snap forward, fucking Goro in earnest now, and his hand works its way between them to stroke Goro’s cock, touch almost too tight. Goro cries out. “I want to hear you.”

Goro moans his name again, or at least manages to whimper syllables close to Akira’s name. He rocks into Akira’s thrusts, both of them one half of the same rhythm.

Goro’s breath comes out in sporadic gasps with every upward stroke on his cock, the pleasure starting to narrow his vision as Akira’s thrusts go wild. He grabs hold of Akira’s hair and yanks him into a rough kiss, so close to coming he can taste it, feel it coiling through his body like electricity.

“I’m so close,” he says into Akira’s mouth. “I’m— _fuck_ , Akira—”

His orgasm spasms through him, almost disorienting in its sharpness. He clings to Akira while it rolls through him, little hiccups of pleasure escaping him each time Akira slides in and brushes over his oversensitive prostate. He digs his heels into Akira’s back, urging him to let go, too.

Goro wants to watch him do it. He combs Akira’s hair away from his forehead to see his face, the hazy sheen over his eyes. He lifts his hips, letting Akira slam in with desperation.

“Oh, fuck, _fuck_ ,” Akira breathes when he comes, cock pulsing and hips faltering. Goro commits every detail of Akira to memory: the slack jaw, the sweat on his chest, the awe in his expression as he comes inside Goro. He doesn’t want to miss any of it.

Akira all but collapses on top of him a few moments later, breathing hot air in and out over the curve of Goro’s neck. Goro lets his legs fall from where they’re taut around Akira’s back, finding the energy to breathe again.

“Well,” he says breathlessly. “I would say you certainly did make it up to me.”

Akira chuckles weakly into Goro’s neck. He plants a few soft kisses there, then lifts his head to regard him. “I can make it up to you some more later, if you’d like,” he offers.

Goro laughs. “Deal.”

They slowly disentangle themselves. Akira slides out of him and takes care of the condom while Goro cleans the come off his stomach in the bathroom. By the time he comes back, Akira’s made himself at home under the sheets and Morgana’s curled up on precisely Goro’s spot on the bed.

“Sorry,” Akira says, scratching Morgana behind the ears. “He doesn’t like sharing me.”

“I see,” Goro says. He looks at the scene in front of him, how domestic and sweet it is to see Akira naked between Goro’s sheets, comfortably stretched out next to his cat. Goro wants that. Goro won’t let go of it ever again. “Well, he’s going to have to try.”

He settles on the bed next to Akira, and lets himself be pulled close to his chest. Between them, Morgana meows in defiance, and grumbles a little as he rearranges himself so he’s snug between Goro and Akira’s legs.

“I really am sorry, you know,” Akira whispers to the crown of Goro’s head.

“I know,” Goro says. He clears his throat. “Oh, and—I’m also in love with you. Just to be clear.”

He finds it even easier to say than he expected. Under Goro’s ear, Akira’s heart flutters. On impulse, Goro gently bites down on Akira’s chest, then soothes away the burn with a kiss. Even through his hair, he can feel Akira’s smile grow against his head.

\--

Goro wakes up to the unrelenting noise of somebody stomping overhead, like a parade float is marching through one floor up. In his half-awake daze, Goro forgets everything except for his intense hatred for his neighbors, up until he blinks awake and realizes one of said neighbors is wrapped around him, snoring gently in his ear.

It feels warm, and cozy, and intimate. Goro is completely seduced by it, by the satisfaction, by the way he sinks into the arms and legs entwined with his own. He feels, for one heady moment, that he could stay like this all day.

Except that the trampling from above is slightly ruining his happy glow.

He nudges Akira with his elbow. “Akira,” he says. When his sleep-rough voice doesn’t elicit more than a mumble from Akira, he clears his throat and tries again. “ _Akira_.”

Akira’s arms tighten around Goro. “Mm?”

“Listen.”

He waits a beat for Akira to fully wake up and register what’s going on. It doesn’t take long for the footsteps to catch his attention too.

“I’ll take care of it,” Akira says, and then he’s sliding all his pleasant warmth away from Goro and slipping out of the bed, which isn’t quite what Goro wanted, even if it does afford him the view of Akira emerging naked from the sheets, searching for his clothes.

He leaves the bedroom, shortly after which Goro hears the front door open and shut too. It leaves behind a forlorn emptiness in the spot on the bed next to Goro, but a minute later, the footsteps from above cease, leaving only blissful silence behind.

It doesn’t take long after that for Akira to return downstairs and head straight back to bed. He shucks his clothes and curls himself around Goro again. It reminds Goro of the last morning they spent together like this, and, most importantly, how even better it is this time.

“Done,” Akira says, diving straight into his next task, which appears to be sucking marks to the surface of Goro’s chest. “Better?”

Goro’s arms instinctively circle Akira’s shoulders. That calm morning glow is already coming back to him. “Better,” he says. 

“Ryuji and Yusuke say hi,” Akira murmurs. “They also said no one’s come by to look for cats yet.”

“Hm. It might not be safe up there for a bit,” Goro says, absent-mindedly carding a hand through Akira’s hair. “You’ll have to stay here.”

“It might take a few days until they send someone to check.”

“Then stay a few days,” Goro says.

The answering look Akira gives him is wondrous. He might be thinking that a part of Goro is still a little mad, completely unknowing of the fact that Goro wouldn’t mind if he stayed weeks, or months, or—

He works his fingers through a knot in Akira’s strands and resumes his stroking.

“Morgana wouldn’t bother you?” Akira asks carefully.

Goro wonders if it’s really Morgana they’re talking about. “It’d be a pleasure to have him around,” he says. If he’s not quite clear enough, or perhaps being too polite, he nudges Akira to eye level by the hair. “You as well.”

Just in case the start of another apology is sitting on Akira’s tongue, Goro kisses him before he can let it out. He feels remarkably light, the weight of his anger and frustration and sadness lifted. Akira makes a noise against his lips, pleased, and Goro kisses him, and kisses him, and all is so very joyfully quiet one floor up.

\--

“So I told the guy,” Sakamoto says through a mouthful of rice, “that, dude, there’s no cat here. You can even look around if you don’t believe me.”

“And did he?”

Sakamoto looks rather miffed, but is too busy chewing to explain for a few moments. When he does, he says, “Yeah! He actually checked for a cat.”

“Ryuji breathing down his neck the whole time certainly must’ve sped up him doing so,” Yusuke adds in. “Can someone pass the ginger?”

Goro’s the closest, so he hands it across the coffee table. Once he leans back, Akira’s arm comes down over his shoulders again, a comfortable weight to be tucked into.

“Anyway, the guy left,” Ryuji says. “So I guess you and Morgana can come back again, Akira.”

“Mm,” Akira says. He briefly meets Goro’s eyes. “I might stay at Goro’s just a little longer.”

There’s a moment’s silence in the apartment, interrupted by Yusuke turning to Ryuji and saying mildly, “I told you.”

“Actually, _I_ told you,” Ann says, poking Yusuke in the knee. “I totally figured out after the first three days that they were basically already moving in.”

“It’s only been a week!” Goro insists. A very good week, but still. Goro stops, and forces himself to look away from the suggestive dance of Ryuji’s eyebrows. “And we’re not moving in together.”

Yet. Although he did notice that Akira’s toothbrush had joined his this morning at the sink. And it would be an awful waste for Akira to leave now that Morgana is finally warming up to Goro, but—

“If you are moving in together,” Yusuke says thoughtfully, as though Goro has not spoken a word, “perhaps Ann and I should move in together as well.”

“What?!” Ann cries.

“Well, I certainly couldn’t afford my own apartment,” Yusuke says with all the seriousness of pure reason.

Goro decides to hide his judgment in his next forkful of food. He isn’t exactly in an exemplary position to hold his nose up at Ann; he can hardly berate her for being illogical in love when he’s no better. 

Goro shifts on his thighs. It’s a bit of a tight fit with everyone hunched on the floor around the coffee table, but then again—parties notwithstanding—the apartment is a bit too small for a gathering of their size to comfortably enjoy dinner. Even if the dining room table would be large enough to accommodate everyone, which it really isn’t, it’s currently being held hostage by Yusuke’s latest art project. Ryuji had then been the one to suggest everybody just grab a cushion and sit on the floor.

(“It’s _Ryuji_ ,” Akira had said earlier this week. “You have to call my friends by their first names.” His stern expression had been slightly crippled by the fact that they were both naked. How Ryuji even came up during such a moment is beyond Goro.)

Seeing all five of them now squeezed into the living room with their food has Goro wondering how Akira ever managed to live here with two roommates without constantly running out of space in the fridge or waiting in line for the bathroom. Maybe him moving in with Goro would be good for his overall quality of life. And Goro—Goro can’t say he dislikes the idea of having someone to share a fridge with.

He hides his grin at the idea.

“We would perhaps have to work out a custody arrangement for Morgana,” Yusuke suggests. “Are you getting along with him, Goro?”

“I believe I am,” Goro says. Even if Morgana does have a tendency to always pop up and demand attention whenever he and Akira are about to—well.

“Can’t believe you tried to get us thrown out of here because of him,” Ryuji says, but he’s grinning. It’s possible Goro’s cunning impresses him. “You know, you’re not so bad when you’re gettin’ some. Really mellows you out.”

Goro might argue the crudeness of that if it wasn’t so true. Also, he can’t help but feel quite smug about his recent increase in time spent between the sheets. It’s a welcome development as much as it is a new one.

“Ryuji!” Ann chides.

“Whaaat? It was a compliment!” Ryuji says. “And I’m just sayin’ what we were all thinking, you know.”

“I’ll allow it,” Goro says. “It is true, after all.”

He nestles firmly into the curve of Akira’s arm, feeling content and rather pleased to be showing off his sexually satisfying relationship. He’s never had such a thing to show off before. It’s always been his intellect or his superficial connections that were worth boasting, and now it’s the fact that he has a boyfriend who loves him despite everything, and that he sits on the floor eating a casual dinner with people he actually considers his friends, and that there’s more to his life than just his grievances and obligations.

It also helps that Akira’s finally starting taking Goro’s insistence on a schedule seriously, and that he’s relayed this message to Ryuji, who sticks to exercising while Goro’s at work, and Yusuke, who takes all of his musical moments of inspiration to Ann’s apartment.

“Although, I do believe it might make more sense for Akira and Goro to move in together here,” Yusuke says, still thinking. “Then Ryuji’s noise making wouldn’t be a bother anymore.”

“Hey!”

“Okaaay, we’ll have to continue this conversation later,” Ann says, putting down her chopsticks. “Yusuke and I have movie tickets and we gotta get going if we don’t want to be late.”

“Ah, yes,” Yusuke says, perking up. “It’s about a painter in Paris who falls in love with his landlady. There’s supposedly some stunning examples of post-impressionism inspired by the works of Paul Cezanne in the film.”

“Yeah,” Ann says, reaching for Yusuke’s hand as she stands up. “Aaand the actor is super cute.”

Yusuke’s hand slips into hers without a word. The casual display of intimacy shouldn’t startle Goro considering the frankly copious amount of museum dates they’ve been on since, but regardless, it does still surprise him how well it’s all working out. Ann’s been almost nauseatingly happy, and if nothing else, Goro’s pleased that she’s dating someone who, however idiosyncratic he is, clearly worships her and the ground she walks on.

“Welp, I guess I’ll get outta here too if they’re going to the movies,” Ryuji says, stretching. “My mom asked for my help fixing the fridge at her place.” He clambers to his feet. “Kinda weird that I’m such an awesome roommate yet nobody wants to live with me anymore, huh?”

“I don’t recall you ever fixing appliances around here,” Yusuke says. “Akira?”

“Me neither.”

“All right, all right!” Ryuji says, wrangling his arms into his jacket. “Come on, you guys want to go to the station together?”

The three of them leave, Ryuji still loudly arguing about his merits as a roommate, and Goro and Akira head back downstairs after that. Akira’s the one to unlock the door—with the extra key, or perhaps it’s Akira’s key now—and the one to volunteer to make coffee—with the machine he had brought from Leblanc’s storage. He takes off his shoes and scoops up Morgana on the way, all of his actions speaking of easy comfort and learned habit. Goro can see him living here. Goro can see a lot of things.

“Everything okay?” Akira asks.

“Hm?”

“You were staring,” Akira says.

“Oh.” Goro steps closer, watching as Akira grabs cups from the cupboard. He knows exactly where they are, and which one Goro’s favorite is. “I was wondering. What would you think of you moving in with me?”

Akira smiles. “But I don’t know if I can live without Ryuji’s handyman skills.”

Goro rolls his eyes. “Always the joker,” he says.

Akira snags him around the waist before Goro can turn away, winding his arms around Goro’s middle. “I’d like to move in,” he murmurs. “If you can handle the jokes, that is.”

Goro leans into his touch, the effect of it stirring some great comfort from within him. He’s overcome with the realization that any place would feel like home if Akira’s with him too, and not just because he chases away any noise from above that bothers Goro. Rather he fills the pieces that were always empty beforehand, the ones that Goro had always pretended weren’t even there.

“There’s no part of you I can’t handle,” Goro says, and kisses him. He doesn’t pull away until the smell of fresh coffee fills the apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Twitter under [veterization](https://twitter.com/veterization) and say hello!


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